Abstract

Using social comparison and social network theory, I sought to examine the corporate governance antecedents of top management team (TMT) horizontal pay dispersion that may be interpreted as unjustifiable reasons of pay dispersion and therefore undermine firm performance. I therefore examined compensation data from firms appearing on the S&P500 from 2008 to 2013 and ran panel regressions. This paper adds to the existing literature, as it is one of the first studies to explicitly examine the corporate governance mechanisms that affect TMT pay dispersion. I hope these findings can remedy the continuance of ineffective compensation practices which lead to unjustified pay dispersion among executives and in turn harm firm performance.