Top management team pay, firm size and performance relationship in Saudi Arabian firms

Abstract

We study the relationship of top management team’s (TMT) pay with firm performance with a sample of 80 firms listed on Saudi stock market. We find that firm performance and firm size emerge as significant variables in explaining TMT compensation. This is in line with many of the earlier studies which proxy the firm performance as the ability of the firm to pay higher compensation and firm size as a proxy for complexity of operations. We find that large firms and firms with better financial performance pay higher compensation to their TMT. When we group the firms into large firms and small firms, we find that firm size and firm performance are significant variables that influence TMT pay only in case of large firms. Our results show that firm size does not influence TMT pay and only firm performance impacts TMT pay.