Using a large sample of U.S. firms, we provide evidence on the interplay between CEO overconfidence and CFO overconfidence on cost behavior in the setting of cost stickiness. We predict that overconfident CEOs or CFOs overestimate future demand, which makes them more likely to keep excess...

We examine how employees respond to bonuses and penalties using a proprietary data set from an electronic chip manufacturer in China. First, we examine the relative effects of bonuses and penalties and observe a stronger effect on subsequent effort and performance for penalties than for bonuses....

This paper empirically examines the interactive effect of competition intensity and competition type on the use of customer satisfaction measures in executives’ annual bonus contracts. Specifically, we predict a stronger association between competition intensity in an industry and the use of...