Recent studies in managerial accounting point out that the firms do not fully ratchet up the managers' future performance targets based on their past performance. This study offers a novel theoretical perspective on the firm's executive compensation strategy that supports such latest empirical...

This study builds on the ratchet principle literature and examines the subordinate's incentive to reduce the effort level in target setting procedure. Using the data containing both actual and target performances, we provide direct empirical evidences as to the predictions by the ratchet...

Managerial incentive plans often combine objective measures of performance relative to beginning-of-year targets with ex post subjective evaluations. We argue that one of the roles of subjectivity is to offset the limitations of target-based rewards and strengthen managerial incentives when...