Human capital, pay structure, and the use of performance
measures in bonus compensation
Sally K. Widener ∗
Abstract
Traditional financial measures have been criticized for lacking relevance in today’s economy where firms are
increasingly competing with intangible assets. However, perhaps this criticism is not detrimental to firms if they
take actions to supplement the information contained in financial measures. Thus, it is important to explore whether
and when firms recognize this potential deficiency and take action to acquire the appropriate information. This
study hypothesizes that two human resource variables, reliance on human capital and the firm’s pay structure, are
associated with the use of non-financial measures in top managers’ bonus compensation contracts since they provide
information incremental to that provided by traditional financial measures. Using archival data from 177 firms, I
estimate binary and multi-response ordered logit models. The binary logit model provides evidence that laborintensive
firms have a higher probability of placing emphasis on non-financial measures (along with traditional
financial measures) and a lower probability of relying solely on traditional financial measures. Moreover, this
relationship is moderated by the firm’s pay structure. Analysis shows that the relationship is stronger in firms that
employ a hierarchical pay structure. Furthermore, the multi-response logit model extends these finding by showing
that these firms also have a higher probability of relying on human resource measures.
© 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Executive compensation provokes debate on many fronts,1 one of which is that emphasis on financial
measures leads executives to focus on the short-term. Stone (Business Week, December 23, 2002)
summarizes the issue by saying,
The primary problem in Corporate America is not with investors’ short-term focus on quarterly
results, but with management’s desire to achieve short-term goals because of their impact on executive
compensation. ‘With the obsessive focus on quarterly numbers, management is motivated to
make decisions that are pragmatic from a short-term perspective but may impair the long-term health
of the organization,’ says Jeffrey Evans, president of the New York Society of Security Analysts.
Consider a common decision that executives make regarding investment in human capital. Compensation,
training, and other related costs are expensed in the current period. Executives focused on quarterly
financial numbers have an incentive to forego labor-related investment in order to enhance the quarterly
financial results, even though the disinvestment may be detrimental to the long-term health of the organization
(Laverty, 1996). The purpose of this study is to provide evidence on the debate by examining the
use of performance measures in executive bonus compensation and determining whether firms that rely
heavily on labor to sustain its operations supplement traditional financial measures with non-financial
measures.
Executive bonus compensation provides an interesting setting for two reasons. First, it is a significant
part of executive pay.2 Second, it is the portion of executive compensation that is intended to motivate
managerial behaviors (Milkovich and Newman, 2002; Balkcom et al., 1997; Vancil, 1979). Traditionally,
compensation contracts have been written based on financial accounting measures, especially net income,
earnings per share, and return on assets (McKenzie and Shilling, 1998). The prevailing view is that
traditional financial measures encourage a short-term focus (Laverty, 1996) while non-financial measures
focus managers on making decisions that are healthier for the long run (Kaplan and Norton, 1996). Thus,
the design of executive bonus compensation provides a rich setting to study the use of financial and
non-financial performance measures.
This study investigates the association between the use of performance measures and the reliance on
human capital. Labor, or human capital, is a critical type of intangible asset on which firms increasingly
rely (Lev, 2001). The term “human capital” has many different definitions. Economists consider human
talent and knowledge to be both a form of wealth and capital (Lev and Schwartz, 1971). Strategists define
strategic human capital as the portion of theworkforce that helps the firm sustain its competitive advantage
(Barney and Wright, 1998). The broadest definition of human capital and one found in the organizational
behavior literature is that it is the knowledge and/or skills possessed by the firm’s workforce (Lev, 2001;
Barney, 1991; Becker et al., 2001). Kaplan and Norton (1996, p. 6) state,
1 Another significant aspect of the debate on executive compensation is the level of pay as illustrated in this quote from the
Washington Post (April 3, 1997), which said, “Last year was something of a banner year for corporate chief executives: company
profits rose faster than sales, stock prices rose faster than profits and executive pay rose faster than everything.” Although the
level of pay is an interesting issue to study, it is not one that is included in the current study. I study the use of performance
measures and leave the study of the mix and weights of executive compensation to future research.
2 In this sample, the bonus paid to executives is 1.41 times their base salary, on average. Anecdotal evidence also supports
this conclusion. Former Chief Executive Officer George Fisher of Eastman Kodak Co. states, “I get no bonus this year. I don’t
deserve a bonus this year, and that’s half my pay. That’s pretty significant” (Hirsch, Wall Street Journal, March 17, 1998).
S.K. Widener / Management Accounting Research 17 (2006) 198–221
Now all employees must contribute value by what they know and by the information they can
provide. Investing in, managing, and exploiting the knowledge of every employee have become
critical to the success of information age companies.
In accordance with the latter line of research discussed above, I define human capital as the firm’s
workforce (i.e., the value contributed through the workforce’s contribution via skills and knowledge).
I also investigate an important contextual factor that may influence the relation between the use of
performance measures and the reliance on human capital—the firm’s design of its pay structure.
I draw on both economic theory (i.e., the informativeness principle) and social psychology theory (i.e.,
equity theory) to develop hypotheses. Agency theory embraces rational choice models; research often
investigates how performance measures can be used to more closely align employee actions with the
objectives of owners (Ittner et al., 1997). However, employees work in a social environment and “one’s
actions frequently and unavoidably shape, and are shaped by, the actions of others” (Sprinkle, 2003, p.
295). In this setting, agency theory generally disregards effects from salary and bonus apportionment;
however, since research shows that matters of equity are important to employees (Cowherd and Levine,
1992), incorporating both theories allows me to undertake a more complete investigation of the use of
performance measures. Indeed, Sprinkle (2003) calls for research that incorporates the apportionment of
rewards on performance-based contracts.
Ittner et al. (1997) use the informativeness principle as the basis of an investigation of the use of
performance measures inCEObonus compensation. They argue that traditional financial measures may be
appropriate for CEOs in firms focused on cost minimization; however, for CEOs in firms following either
a quality or an innovation-oriented strategy, non-financial measures will provide incremental information
regarding the firm’s long-term strategic objectives and help better align interests within the firm. Extending
this, I rely on the informativeness principle to argue that the use of non-financial information will provide
relevant information incremental to that provided by traditional financial measures when the firm relies
on human capital. I then draw on equity theory, which predicts that employees’ behaviors and attitudes
are negatively affected when they perceive inequity in the firm’s pay structure. Sprinkle (2003) notes that
issues of fairness and equity may well influence contracting. In my setting, it is likely that the perception
of (a lack of) fairness will (exacerbate) mitigate moral hazard issues. I argue, therefore, that the association
between the likelihood of using non-financial measures in bonus compensation and the use of human
capital will depend on the design of the firm’s pay structure.
Using disclosure information from the proxy statements of 177 firms, I classify the use of information in
bonus compensation into two categories: (1) firms that emphasize financial measures versus (2) firms that
use both financial and non-financial measures. Using a cross-sectional, binary logistic model I find that
the likelihood of using both financial and non-financial measures is increasing in labor intensity3 and that
the relation is more positive when the firm employs a hierarchical pay structure. This finding supports
the argument that the pay structure moderates the association between the use of human capital and
the use of non-financial measures in executive bonus compensation. Thus, the incremental information
content of non-financial measures is important in the monitoring and control process in labor-intensive
firms. I extend the analysis by subdividing the two broad categories of performance measures into four
categories characterized as firms that rely on: (1) financial information only, (2) financial and nonfinancial
information, but a financial threshold must be met, (3) financial and non-financial information
3 The terms “reliance on human capital” and “labor-intensive firms” are used interchangeably.