IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlabec/v20y2002i4p848-876.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Compensation and Span of Control in Hierarchical Organizations

Author

Listed:
  • Pedro Ortin-Angel

    (Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona)

  • Vicente Salas-Fumas

    (Universidad de Zaragoza)

Abstract

This article presents evidence on the relationship between compensation ratios and spans of control within hierarchical organizations. We find that compensation ratios are lower than span of control at any position within the hierarchy, which is consistent with an elasticity of compensation to a number of subordinates lower than one. Managers' human capital endowments determine a significant part of the salary differences throughout hierarchical levels, as predicted by models of talent allocation in hierarchies. Differences in the size of firms should be attributed more to differences in their number of hierarchical levels than to variations in the span of control.

Suggested Citation

  • Pedro Ortin-Angel & Vicente Salas-Fumas, 2002. "Compensation and Span of Control in Hierarchical Organizations," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(4), pages 848-876, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlabec:v:20:y:2002:i:4:p:848-876
    DOI: 10.1086/342040
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/342040
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/342040?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan S. Leonard, 1990. "Executive Pay and Firm Performance," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 43(3), pages 13, April.
    2. Eriksson, Tor, 1999. "Executive Compensation and Tournament Theory: Empirical Tests on Danish Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 262-280, April.
    3. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number minc74-1.
    4. Main, Brian G M & O'Reilly, Charles A, III & Wade, James, 1993. "Top Executive Pay: Tournament or Teamwork?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(4), pages 606-628, October.
    5. Robert Gibbons & Michael Waldman, 1999. "A Theory of Wage and Promotion Dynamics Inside Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1321-1358.
    6. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling and Earnings," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 41-63, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tim Hazledine, 2016. "Tip of the Iceberg? Organisational Foundations of Top Pay in New Zealand Listed Companies, 1995-2014," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 19(3), pages 197-206.
    2. Smeets, Valerie & Warzynski, Frederic, 2008. "Too many theories, too few facts? What the data tell us about the link between span of control, compensation and career dynamics," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 687-703, August.
    3. Eliza C. Forsythe, 2019. "The Occupational Structures of Low- and High-Wage Service Sector Establishments," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 33(2), pages 76-91, May.
    4. Smeets, Valérie & Warzynski, Frederic, 2006. "Testing Models of Hierarchy: Span of Control, Compensation and Career Dynamics," Working Papers 06-10, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    5. Elizabeth M. Caucutt & Krishna B. Kumar, 2004. "Evaluating Explanations for Stagnation," Development and Comp Systems 0409002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Massón-Guerra, José Luis & Ortín-Angel, Pedro, 2014. "Entrepreneurship Capital and Regional Productivity Revisited," MPRA Paper 57470, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Alberto Bayo-Moriones & Pedro Ortín-Ángel, 2003. "Internal Promotion Versus External Recruitment: Evidence in Industrial Plants," Working Papers 0303, Departament Empresa, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, revised Mar 2003.
    8. Teodora Paligorova, 2005. "Czech Managerial Compensations: Why Does It Pay Off to Climb the Corporate Ladder?," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp262, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    9. Hassink, Wolter & Russo, Giovanni, 2010. "The Glass Door: The Gender Composition of Newly-Hired Workers Across Hierarchical Job Levels," IZA Discussion Papers 4858, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. José Ángel Zúñiga Vicente & José David Vicente Lorente, 2003. "Assessing the Structural Change of Strategic Mobility Determinants Under Hypercompetitive Environments," Working Papers 0302, Departament Empresa, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, revised Feb 2003.
    11. Pedro Ortin Ángel & Ana Millan Tapia & Stefan Sundgren, 2016. "Are the Most Capable Auditors in the Big 4 Firms? Model," Working Papers 1601, Departament Empresa, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, revised Jan 2016.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael Waldman, 2012. "Theory and Evidence in Internal LaborMarkets [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    2. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Robert Gibbons & Michael Waldman, 2006. "Enriching a Theory of Wage and Promotion Dynamics inside Firms," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 59-108, January.
    4. Pedro Ortín‐Ángel & Vicente Salas‐Fumás, 2007. "Compensation Dispersion Between and Within Hierarchical Levels," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 53-79, March.
    5. Lee-Wen Yang & Yi-Fang Yang & Wun-Hnog Su, 2015. "Salary Gap And Operating Performance: Perspective Of Tournament Theory," Global Journal of Business Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 9(1), pages 15-26.
    6. Bingley, P. & Eriksson, T, 2001. "Pay Spread and Skewness. Employee Effort and Firm Productivity," Papers 01-2, Aarhus School of Business - Department of Economics.
    7. Patrick Kampkoetter, 2012. "Determinants of Compensation in the Financial Services Industry," Cologne Graduate School Working Paper Series 03-12, Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences.
    8. Christian Grund & Niels Westergaard-Nielsen, 2008. "The Dispersion of Employees' Wage Increases and Firm Performance," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 61(4), pages 485-501, July.
    9. Gächter, Simon & Thöni, Christian, 2010. "Social comparison and performance: Experimental evidence on the fair wage-effort hypothesis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 531-543, December.
    10. Heutel, Garth, 2009. "Testing implications of a tournament model of school district salary schedules," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 143-151, February.
    11. Gächter, Simon & Thöni, Christian, 2010. "Social comparison and performance: Experimental evidence on the fair wage-effort hypothesis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 531-543, December.
    12. Baptista, Rui & Lima, Francisco & Preto, Miguel Torres, 2012. "How former business owners fare in the labor market? Job assignment and earnings," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 263-276.
    13. Fix, Blair, 2017. "Evidence for a Power Theory of Personal Income Distribution," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2017/03, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    14. Dohmen, Thomas J., 2004. "Performance, seniority, and wages: formal salary systems and individual earnings profiles," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 741-763, December.
    15. Fix, Blair, 2020. "Economic Development and the Death of the Free Market," SocArXiv g86am, Center for Open Science.
    16. Simon Gächter & Daniele Nosenzo & Martin Sefton, 2012. "The Impact of Social Comparisons on Reciprocity," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(4), pages 1346-1367, December.
    17. Fredrik Heyman, 2005. "Pay inequality and firm performance: evidence from matched employer-employee data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(11), pages 1313-1327.
    18. Carr, Michael D., 2011. "Work hours and wage inequality: Evidence from the 2004 WERS," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 417-427, August.
    19. Thierry Lallemand & Robert Plasman & François Rycx, 2005. "La dispersion salariale stimule-t-elle la performance d'une firme ?," Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(2), pages 63-70.
    20. Blair Fix, 2018. "Hierarchy and the power-law income distribution tail," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 471-491, September.
    21. Keith F. Gilsdorf & Vasant Sukhatme, 2008. "Tournament incentives and match outcomes in women's professional tennis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(18), pages 2405-2412.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jlabec:v:20:y:2002:i:4:p:848-876. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JOLE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.