Determinants of executive pay satisfaction

Abstract

DETERMINANTS OF EXECUTIVE PAY SATISFACTION

Objective of the study The objective of the study is to review executive pay satisfaction. Five different pay satisfaction multiples are analyzed with variables from four different perspectives: individual, company and job design factors and actual compensation. The empirical tests of the study are premised on the literature presented in the theoretical part. The objective is to analyze executive pay satisfaction widely and explore the explaining variables.

Empirical data and processing The primary data for the study is gathered by a web-based questionnaire in NasdaqOMX listed companies in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania and Sweden in 2008. The base for the web-based questionnaire was a list of 650 NasdaqOMX listed company Chief Financial Officers contact details. Before the questionnaire was sent it was tested with several authorities. Gathering of the data was carried out in stages. First the executives received an information letter of the study after which the actual questionnaire was sent. Executives that did not response to the questionnaire where approached also with a reminder note and phone calls. The secondary data for the OLS regression analysis was gathered from Amadeus database in 2007.

Conclusions The results of the study emphasize the big verity of the determinants of executive pay satisfaction. Based on the results one can argue that pay satisfaction is a complex entirety that is affected by multiple aspects. For example executive education level was found to have negative relation to pay satisfaction, executives with higher education were less satisfied with the pay. A positive relation was found between the relative amount of share option based compensation and pay satisfaction, relatively high amount of options increased the satisfaction level. However the findings of this study need be considered as indicative and a strong premise for the future pay satisfaction study.

Key words Pay satisfaction, executive compensation, compensation element