We collect detailed survey data on financial managers' annual bonus plans and extensively validate a measure of the willingness to engage in unethical behavior using a panel of 253 respondents. Our main finding suggests that incentives to meet financial targets are positively associated with...

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...

We examine the extent to which firms use past performance as a basis for setting earnings targets in their bonus plans and assess the implications of such targets for managerial incentives. We find that high-profitability firms commonly reduce earnings targets when their managers fail to meet...