Numerous studies have attempted to find a clear link between pay practices and performance, but have largely failed. In Good to Great, Jim Collins said his team 'found no systematic pattern linking executive compensation to the process of going from good to great.'
There was no indication, for instance, that bonuses or stock options were more widely used by the good-to-great companies. Moreover, Collins found that the executives who lead the good-to-great transition actually received slightly less total cash compensation than their counterparts at comparison companies.
Pfeffer and Sutton come to a similar conclusion about most efforts to boost performance by creating pay incentives:
There is, in fact, little evidence that equity incentives of any kind, including stock options, e