Institutional Activism Types and CEO Compensation: A Time-Series Analysis of Large Canadian Corporations †

Abstract

Using data from the Toronto Stock Exchange 300 companies for a 7-year period, the authors examine the role that institutional activism types and three salient board monitoring mechanisms— CEO/board chair split, board composition, and compensation committee independence—play in influencing CEO contingent compensation in Canada. The authors find that the effect of institutional activism, especially proxy based, is stronger on contingent CEO compensation and that its effects span a longer time. As opposed to the interactions of cumulative proxy-based activism with any of the three monitoring mechanisms, the interactions of cumulative non-proxy-based activism with both CEO/board chair split and compensation committee independence appear to influence CEO contingent compensation. The study's implications are given.