Compensation management

This dissertation analyzes how the reactions of repatriates and
spouses/partners about their new lifestyle and compensation package upon
repatriation relate to several repatriate turnover outcomes. U.S.-based
multinational organizations often provide global assignees with an extensive
benefit package, including such items as housing allowances, foreign-service
premiums, tuition for international schools, and club memberships. Once the
assignment is over, these additional benefits are necessarily terminated.
Results of a qualitative analysis of 14 semi-structured interviews and a
quantitative analysis of 37 U.S. repatriated executives and 34 spouses/partners
of repatriated executives suggest that repatriate perceptions of distributive
justice positively relate to all facets of pay satisfaction (i.e. pay level, pay raise,
benefits, and pay structure and administration satisfaction), while procedural
justice relates positively to pay structure and administration satisfaction. Overall pay satisfaction, in turn, positively relates to the intentions to increase
one's investment in company-specific skills. Repatriate and spouse/partner
attitudes about the changes in benefits they encounter upon repatriation are
predicted by their children's satisfaction with their new lifestyle. Furthermore,
some evidence suggests support for the proposition that overall pay satisfaction
and benefit change satisfaction of repatriates and spouses/partners negatively
relate to the actual turnover of repatriates.
The implications drawn from this dissertation inform theories of social
status, spillover, equity, and expatriate adjustment. Multinational organizations
employing expatriates may additionally consider the practical implications
useful when establishing compensation packages and repatriation programs for
international assignees.

This dissertation investigates the antecedents and consequences to pay disparity between the CEO and non-CEO executives from an equity-based perspective. While the principles of agency theory suggest that CEOs are granted higher compensation packages to better align their motives to those of the firm's shareholders, empirical research has not supported a positive relationship between rising CEO pay and firm performance. Some results even suggest a negative relationship. This dissertation argues that if organizational outcomes are determined by the integrated skills and talents of its dominant coalition, and if the management of a firm's trajectory is a shared process, then, the disparity in rewards between the CEO and those that work closest to him becomes an important area of study.

I investigate whether and how auditors address the potential risk of CEO incentive pay and CEO incentives from their equity portfolio as an incentive to commit fraud through their pricing decisions. Using an OLS regression model I find that auditors price CEO incentive pay in the post SOX period. Also, auditors price CEOs' non-linear incentives from their holdings of stock options as a fraud risk factor but do not price linear incentives from CEO holding of stock and restricted stock. Furthermore, auditors consider CEO incentives to manipulate firm performance due to the vested portion of option holdings as a fraud risk factor which is priced, and not the unvested portion of this portfolio. Furthermore, I find evidence to suggest that auditors price CEO opportunity to commit fraud, as well as CEO rationalizing the act of committing fraud, therefore concluding that auditors price all components of the fraud triangle.