Chief financial officer co-option and chief executive officer compensation

Shane S. Dikolli, John C. Heater, William J. Mayew, Mani Sethuraman

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

20 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study whether relative power in the chief executive officer (CEO)–chief financial officer (CFO) relationship influences CEO compensation. To operationalize relative power of a CEO over a CFO, we define CFO co-option as the appointment of a CFO after a CEO assumes office. We find that CFO co-option is associated with a CEO pay premium of about 10%, which is concentrated more in the early years of the co-opted CFO’s tenure and in components of compensation that vary with the achievement of analyst-based earnings targets. Our evidence also indicates that a primary channel through which CEO power over a co-opted CFO yields the achievement of earnings targets is the use of earnings management to inflate earnings. Co-opted CFOs rely primarily on using discretionary accruals to manage earnings prior to the Sarbanes–Oxley regulatory intervention and switch to real-activities manipulation afterward. The evidence thus suggests that the form of earnings management depends on costs imposed on the CFO to inflate earnings.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1939-1955
Number of pages17
JournalManagement Science
Volume67
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2021
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 INFORMS

Keywords

  • CEO
  • CFO
  • Discretionary accruals
  • Earnings management
  • Executive compensation
  • Financial reporting
  • Managerial power
  • Monitoring
  • Real earnings management

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