An Empirical Investigation Of Independent Director Compensation From Jiangsu Pubulic Companies

Along with the promoting role of the independent directors, the recent researches have concentrated on the way to improve the enthusiasm of their performance on basis of the corporate governance in depth. Despite of this phenomenon, the past study at home, limited by the late start of the independent director system and few current independent directors, were rarely referred to the area of compensation stimulus to the independent directors. However, many recent either overseas or domestic findings illustrate that the compensation level of the independent director is related to their enthusiasm on performance. In light of factors, including the case study restriction, the feasibility and Jiangsu public companies can stand for all public companies to some extent, the paper develops the discussion of related problems from the dimension of the public companies in Jiangsu.As an empirical study pertaining to the relationship of the independent directors'performance and their compensation, the paper, using the experience of the compensation reformation in corporate governance to the independent directors in the USA, the review of questionnaire results of the independent directors and analysis of data related from the Jiangsu public companies for all the years, aims to test the necessity and feasibility of the compensation in math with the role of the independent directors in Jiangsu public companies on the ground of compensation theories and factors relating to extent which influences the independent directors'compensation.Both the law and regulations and the questionnaire result of independent directors reveal that the role of the independent director is promoting on aspects of the increasing working time, difficulty and risk. Besides, the questionnaire result implies that the independent directors expect their compensation to match the time and energy that they spent, i.e., the compensation has to be increased with the enrichment of the compensation structure.The empirical research of Jiangsu public companies'integral samples concludesthat the compensation level of the independent director during the period from 2003 to 2005 is significantly positively related to that of senior managers, and is negatively related to enterprises'performance, and become more significantly.The empirical research of Jiangsu public companies'classified samples states that the compensation level of the independent director in state manipulative and non-state manipulative companies establishes the positive relationship to that of the senior manager. It is such a case in companies with different sizes in the same industry that compensation level of the independent director with the revenue of 100 million and 1 billion on the main business, is significantly positively related to that of the senior manager. What is more, the positive relationship has also been proved between the compensation level of the independent director with the main business revenue of 1-2 billion and board size, enterprise'performance and the stock portion that first stock holder owns. In addition, the compensation level of the independent director in the monopoly industry is also significantly positively relevant to the board size, and significantly negatively related to the portion of the inside directors.Above all, the compensation level of the independent director in Jiangsu public companies is most related to that of the senior manager, but no significant relationship relevant to the governance role that the independent director plays. However, the fair-minded role of the independent director has been realized by the Jiangsu public companies, i.e., the compensation level of the independent director is negatively related to the enterprise'performance.