수직적 임금격차와 주가변동성의 상관관계 = Executive-Employee Pay Disparity and Stock Price Risk

국문 초록 (Abstract)

본 연구는 최고경영진-종업원의 수직적 임금격차와 기업의 주가변동성의 상관관계에 대해 살펴본다. 기업 내 수직적 임금격차는 토너먼트 경쟁을 통해 조직 혁신을 촉진하고 성과를 향상시키는 긍정적인 측면도 있으나, 경영진과 종업원 간에 대립적인 문화를 조성하고 노사관계를 불안정하게 만들어 기업 위험을 증가시킬 가능성이 존재한다. 수직적 임금격차의 영향에 대한 선행연구들은 기업의 성과에만 초점을 맞추어 온 바, 임금격차가 주가변동성 등 기업의 위험을 증가시킬 가능성에 대한 실증분석은 희소했다. 이에 본 연구는 국내 KOSPI 상장기업의 2013-2018년 기간의 자료를 사용하여 기업의 등기임원-종업원 간의 임금격차와 주가변동성의 관계를 분석하였다. 분석 결과, 임금격차가 큰 기업일수록 주가변동성이 높은 것으로 나타나 수직적 임금격차는 기업 내부의 갈등과 불안정성을 증가시켜 주가위험을 증가시킬 수 있다는 주장을 지지하였다. 또한, 재무보고의 불투명성이 클수록, 기업지배구조가 약할수록 임금격차와 주가변동성 간의 양의 상관관계를 완화하는 것으로 나타났다. 마지막으로 수직적 임금격차가 주가폭락위험과도 양의 상관관계를 지니는 것으로 나타나, 임금격차가 기업위험에 미치는 부정적 영향을 뒷받침한다. 본 연구는 수직적 임금격차와 기업성과의 관련성을 탐구한 선행연구를 확장하여 임금격차가 클수록 주가변동성으로 대리된 주가위험이 높아질 수 있음을 보여준 데 공헌점이 있다.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Recent years have seen the conflicts within companies, largely driven by the executive-employee pay disparity. Early this year, for instance, Samsung Electronics’ labor union aired their grievance against their low pay compared to the skyrocketing pay for top management. Kakao’s stock price crashed after the top executives exercised a large stake of their stock options. The pay disparity fuels the anti-management sentiment, because average employees are questioning the adequacy of increasing executive pays. The current study examines the association between vertical pay disparity within firm and stock price risk. Although TMT-employee pay disparity may facilitate firm innovation and improve firm performance through tournament competition, it may increase firm risk by heightening internal competition and discouraging cooperation between TMT and employees. Prior studies have focused on firm performance, while remaining relatively silent on pay disparity’s effect on firm risk. We expand the literature by examining the relation between vertical pay disparity and firms’ stock price risk. Drawing from a sample of firms listed in KOSPI and KOSDAQ during 2013 - 2018, we find the positive association between TMT-employee pay disparity and stock return volatility. We measure the TMT-employee pay disparity with the ratio of the average TMT pay to the average employee pay. We measure the stock return volatility by the standard deviation of weekly stock returns during the subsequent year. Our finding that TMT-employee pay disparity is positively associated with the stock volatility is consistent with our prediction that pay disparity may deepen conflicts between TMT and employees, leading to unstable firm performance and increase in stock price risk. Our findings extend our understanding about the consequences of TMT-employee pay disparity, by suggesting that vertical pay disparity not only affect the average firm performance, but also the variance of firm performance. We also examine whether the financial reporting quality moderates the relation of pay disparity and return volatility. Prior studies suggest that poor financial reporting quality can increase the information asymmetry between TMT and employees, which may further discourage their cooperation. The empirical result indicates that the positive association between pay disparity and return volatility is more pronounced with poor financial reporting quality measured by discretionary accruals. The additional test result suggests that the internal conflict between the TMT and employees may be driven by the low level of information sharing between the groups. In additional analysis, we find that TMT-employee pay disparity is also positively associated with stock price crash risk, supporting the adverse effect of internal conflicts on firm risk. It indicates that TMT-employee pay disparity increases the probability of sudden and substantial drop in stock price, above and beyond the variance of stock prices. Collectively, our study throws an important implication for board of directors who aim to enhance internal coordination and reduce the firm risk. While TMT-employee pay disparity may positively affect the firm performance through tournament incentives (as prior studies found), the disparity may deteriorate the firm operation in terms of the average performance as well as the variability of firm performance.