We examine the relationship between corporate governance (as measured by traditional corporate
governance variables and a new measure of corporate governance, called CEO dominance) and executive
compensation, pre- and post-SOX. We conceptualize CEO dominance as a measure of a CEO's power and
define it as the difference between CEO pay and the next highest executive's pay divided by the CEO's pay. We
argue that for traditional corporate governance variables, the inverse governance–compensation relation that
exists pre-SOX will improve post-SOX. On the other hand, we expect a strong and positive CEO dominance–
compensation relation to exist both pre- and post-SOX. Consistent with expectations, our results indicate that
SOX has changed the relationship between CEO duality and compensation relation, but it has not changed the
CEO dominance–compensation relation. This suggests that SOX regulatory reforms do not limit the ability of
CEO power to obstruct traditional corporate governance mechanisms in extracting compensation-related
rents.