Prior research has examined target setting in market‐driven companies but has not
examined target setting in state‐run companies that also have social and political objectives …

Annual Report Readability And Corporate Bankruptcy Page 1 Annual Report Readability And
Corporate Bankruptcy Julien Le Maux, HEC Montreal, Canada Nadia Smaili, ESG UQAM …

When targets depend on past performance, incentives are adversely affected by the ratchet
effect. We provide theory and evidence that incorporating past peer performance into targets …

ABSTRACT A large stream of work on relative performance evaluation highlights the
benefits of using information about peer performance in contracting. In contrast, the potential …

We study how corporate boards set earnings performance targets in CEOs' annual incentive
plans (AIPs) and the implications for strategic management earning guidance. We find that …

Using data on earnings targets in annual bonus plans, we construct and validate an
empirical measure of beginning-of-year target difficulty and show that it is negatively …

Although it is well understood that product market competition acts as a disciplining
mechanism that reduces inefficiencies, our understanding of the implications for firms' …

This paper examines whether and how different types of CEO power affect the incorporation
of past performance into CEOs' future targets. We theorize that CEOs can use their structural …

Performance evaluations are typically based on a formula that specifies in advance all
performance measures, their relative incentive weights, and targets to be met. However …

Using current performance to set future targets can discourage effort and reduce
performance. Our study examines whether this ratchet effect also undermines incentives of …