First, empirical analyses demonstrate some significant relationships
between top managers’ compensation and a firm’s
strategic orientations. We identify systematic links between
managerial compensation design and firms whose strategy is
oriented toward growth perspectives, innovation, and risk.
Specifically, we find that the prospective strategic orientation
has significant effects on the level, type, and mix of top managers’
compensation. Thus, firms with more discretionary
strategic orientations offer higher compensation levels, use
more long-term incentives, and tie a greater proportion of
pay to performance. As a whole, these kinds of firms design
a more risk-encouraging compensation system. These findings
are consistent with prior studies (Balkin & Gómez-Mejía,
1990; Boyd & Salamin, 2001; Montemayor, 1996; Rajagopalan
& Finkelstein, 1992), and thus provide a useful confirmation
and extension of this matter. For firms in lesser discretionary
contexts, we find only that the defensive market orientation
is related to a smaller proportion of incentive-based compensation.
The lack of significant interaction between managerial
compensation design and other firms’ strategic orientations
is surprising, but, in a certain way, it shows a differentiated
pattern of behavior for Spanish firms in comparison
with U.S. companies. We find that only firms really oriented
toward growth, innovation, and risk match their top managers’
compensation design with the requirements of managerial
control and managerial risk bearing. However, firms with
less innovative and less risky strategic orientations—in our
sample we identify three groups: protective market, formal
administration, and efficient technology orientations—and,
therefore, with low levels of discretion, seem to design compensation
packages independent of such requirements