Enterprise Core Experience On Executive Pay And Gender Studies

This paper offers a new explanation of the gender pay gap in leadership positions by examining the relationship between the pay of core executives and company performance of private listed companies. We investigate the gender pay gap of listed companies from the perspective of core executives instead of the frequent appearance of top management team, defining the core concept more reasonably to make the result comparable.Drawing on findings of gender studies, agency theory, and the leadership literature, we argue that the gender pay gap is a context-specific phenomenon which results partly from the fact that company performance has a moderating impact on pay inequalities. Employing a matched sample of219female and male executive directors of private listed companies we corroborate the existence of the gender pay disparities in corporate boardrooms. In line with our theoretical predictions, we find that pay awarded to men are not only larger than those allocated to women, but also that managerial compensation of male core executive directors is much more performance-sensitive than that of female core executives. The study proposes gender pay gap exist in specific context, which depends on the facts that company performance has a moderating impact on pay inequalities.The contribution of attributional and expectancy-related dynamics to these patterns is highlighted in line with previous work on gender stereotypes and implicit leadership theories such as the romance of leadership. Gender differences in risk-taking and confidence are also considered as potential explanations for the observed pay disparities. It is the mechanism that leads to the variation of the core executive compensation and corporate performance.The paper not only discusses sex discrimination, but also questions the universality of management theory, including romance of leadership, and the compensation design based on agency theory. There is not any optimal solution for compensation design:Only when the core executives are recognized by common as an impact on the performance, did there is a strong relationship between performance and compensation. The implications of organizations’indifference to women’s performance are examined in relation to issues surrounding the recognition and retention of female talent.