薪酬委員會打得到肥貓嗎？以高管、董監超額薪酬角度探討薪酬委員會品質之決定因素

The Determinants of Compensation Committee Quality-- An Analysis from the Perspective of Excess Executive and Director Compensations

台灣證交法於2011 年強制企業設立薪酬委員會，目前還不易看出薪酬委員會的具體成效。但是，委員會成員攸關薪酬委員會品質，委員會品質決定其運作成效。本研究主要探討影響企業遴選薪酬委員之因素，並聚焦於高管、董監超額薪酬對薪酬委員會品質之影響。實證結果發現高管超額薪酬與薪酬委員會品質顯著負相關，表示當高管領有超額薪酬時，自利動機可能會誘使企業降低薪酬委員會之監督功能。董監超額薪酬對薪酬委員會品質則無顯著影響，可能是台灣輿論與主管機關對董事薪酬過度關注，為避免肥貓誹議，企業反而不願降低薪酬委員會之品質。證交法修正條文並未強制要求獨董擔任薪酬委員，且專業資格要求也相當寬鬆，導致社會大眾對反肥貓條款功效的疑慮。本文針對企業設置心態提供實證，首度以超額薪酬角度探討企業設置影響薪酬委員會動機，結果可供有關當局之參考。

The Securities and Exchange Law was amended to request listing companies establishing compensation committees at the end of 2011. It is still too early to evaluate if the compensation committee functions well due to the short period of existence. For this reason, we focus mainly on the determinants of compensation committee quality, especially on firms with excess executive and director compensations. Using Taiwanese listed firms as samples in 2011, empirical evidences indicate significant negative relationships between excess executive compensations and a firm’s compensation committee quality. This implies that firms with excess executive compensations demand weaker monitoring from compensation committee on management remuneration. However, we find insignificant associations between excess director compensations and compensation committee quality, perhaps due to the overwhelmed media and legislator attentions on directors’ compensation. Our results are consistent and robust after a battery of tests using different years and method to measure excess compensations. The literature on compensation committee quality is quite limited and we are the first exploring the relationships between excess compensation and compensation committee quality using samples from the emerging market. The results contribute to the literature and provide policy implications.