There has been a bevy of speculation recently regarding executive salaries and compensation in general for corporate officers. One aspect of this scenario that has received a great deal of attention is related to executive pay differences associated with various types of organizations be it privately owned or public, and issues such as exorbitant executive compensation packages. It appears as though these executive pay issues are often at the forefront of the news when executives are involved in some type of litigation that result in compensation related issues; or simply a news flash about exorbitant executive compensation. A realistic perspective related to executive compensation was the premise of this qualitative research endeavor—more specifically a cross-industry inquiry related to executive pay. A narrative research endeavor was conducted in order to ascertain the perspectives of executive pay from a cross-industry posture. The research endeavor consisted of accessing the opinions of 20 individuals utilizing an item pool that may ascertain the perspectives of the respondents.

Before any conversation related to executive pay begins, one must ascertain the operational definitions of the terms “executive” and “pay”. One premise of this research endeavor was to delve deeply within the construct of executive pay differences from a cross-industry perspective; however, it was believed that the perspectives of several different executives, university doctoral students and other effective executives may provide a more valuable body of information than simply the perspectives of two authors. It is highly suggested that any effective executive should operationally define the constructs for themselves prior to any discussion related to this topic.

The topic of executive pay has received significant attention in recent days as evidenced by an explosion of interdisciplinary literature ranging from law to accounting to organizational behavior and strategy. While there is diversity across industries, sizes of organizations and countries, executive pay includes the common features of base pay and bonus based on performance. This article will consider how base pay and performance incentives differ across industry types and international boundaries—this will be revealed through the personal perspectives of some global executives through a narrative endeavor.

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