Ownership structure, goals, and performance measures in CEO compensation contracts

The design of CEO compensation contracts is an important topic for management accounting because it is frequently based on accounting-related performance measures. This dissertation provides new evidence on this important topic. This dissertation develops hypotheses based on agency theory, on the relations between ownership structure, publicly stated goals, and the weight on performance measures in CEO compensation contracts. The first four hypotheses are tested with archival data. All four test results are consistent with predictions and indicate that ownership of hospitals is related to their publicly stated goals. The last three hypotheses are tested with survey and archival data. One of three test results is consistent with predictions and indicates that hospitals' publicly stated financial goals are related to the weight on financial performance measures in hospital CEO compensation.