Specificity of CEO human capital and compensation

Much research on top management compensation has focused on the relationship between pay and firm performance. Firms, however, may compensate executives for inputs such as skills, as well as for outputs such as firm performance. This study refocuses attention on the links between managerial abilities and compensation by examining pay differences between types of CEO successors who have differential skills—namely, internal and external successors. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.