CEO Compensation and Stakeholders' Claims*

The traditional view that a corporation exists solely to serve the interests of the firm's shareholders has given way to a changing view that recognizes the importance of corporate constituents in addition to shareholders. Prior studies demonstrate a significant association between the sensitivity of CEO compensation and a firm's stock prices. However, the association between CEO compensation and the claim of other primary stakeholders (customers, employees, suppliers) has not been examined. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the adoption of long‐term incentive plans aligns the interest of the CEO with the interest of the primary stakeholders in the firm. Using the fixed‐effect regression, our results indicate a significant association between the change in CEO compensation and the claims of the customers, shareholders, and employees. We contribute to the literature by demonstrating that the managers are accountable not only to the shareholders but also to primary stakeholders.     

Strategic Governance and Management Accounting: Evidence From a Case Study

This paper seeks to establish if top management (the board) of a firm should extend its overview of the governance process to the execution of strategy (i.e., strategic governance) and, if so, does the management accounting information system (MAIS) have a role in facilitating this strategy execution process. This study investigated the role of the board and MAIS in strategic governance by examining a company with a public record of both successful governance and integrated strategic management accounting processes in a high‐risk industry. The analysis demonstrates that boards should go beyond the minimum conformance (compliance) requirements of the governance‐regulatory legislation and assume ultimate responsibility for strategy execution and enterprise performance. However, while management accounting techniques, processes and reports were found to be used extensively in strategic governance to integrate the policy‐management interface in numerous conformance–performance domains, the traditional role of the management accountant was found to be limited in terms of their role in such governance. The study demonstrates that a more strategic governance role offers the management accountant a way back into senior management by using the routines of management accounting to socialize the board and curb any opportunism that may arise.