caa a22 4500 445862645 CHVBK 20180317145448.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170323e20110201xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10997-009-9118-5 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10997-009-9118-5 Board compensation and ownership structure: empirical evidence for Italian listed companies [Elektronische Daten] [Roberto Barontini, Stefano Bozzi] This paper investigates the relationships among corporate ownership, the level of board compensation, and firms' future performance within Italian listed companies. Board compensation could be related to corporate ownership characteristics, like the type of controlling shareholder, ownership concentration, the separation between cash flow and voting rights, and the presence of shareholders' agreements. The evidence of high levels of board compensation associated with certain governance characteristics could signal, in a principal-agent framework, rent extraction by entrenched managers or by controlling shareholders versus minority shareholders; high board compensation, however, could be related to the need to hire directors with higher professional standing and also to the desire to create a network with other companies through the enlargement of the board, according to a social network view. In this paper we disentangle this issue showing the relationship between excess board compensation and future performance: examining firms listed on the Milan Stock Exchange over the period 1995-2002, we show that board compensation is linked to many governance characteristics, but excess compensation is never positively related to future performance. For founder family firms, in particular, high board compensation is associated with (a) smaller board size; (b) higher proportion of family members on the board; (c) lower future performance. The whole evidence therefore doesn't support the hypothesis suggested by the social network view, but is consistent with a rent extraction hypothesis. These results could add new empirical evidence to the recent debate on the need for global remuneration reform. According to our results, some control mechanism and an increase in transparency of executive compensation schemes could be appropriate. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC., 2009 Compensation nationallicence Corporate governance nationallicence Family firms nationallicence Ownership structure nationallicence Barontini Roberto Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Piazza Martiri della Libertà, 33, Pisa, Italy aut Bozzi Stefano Catholic University "Sacro Cuore”, Largo F. Vito, 1, Rome, Italy aut Journal of Management & Governance Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 15/1(2011-02-01), 59-89 1385-3457 15:1<59 2011 15 10997 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10997-009-9118-5 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10997-009-9118-5 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Barontini Roberto Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Piazza Martiri della Libertà, 33, Pisa, Italy aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Bozzi Stefano Catholic University "Sacro Cuore”, Largo F. Vito, 1, Rome, Italy aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Journal of Management & Governance Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 15/1(2011-02-01), 59-89 1385-3457 15:1<59 2011 15 10997 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer