- A study was conducted by some of the researchers in the Harvard titled Paying Up for Fair Pay: Consumers Prefer Firms with Lower CEO-to-Worker Pay Ratios, by Bhavya Mohan, Michael I. Norton, and Rohit Deshpandé. The report concludes that: “Our results demonstrate an additional impact that has not been widely discussed: consumers are likely to be influenced by pay ratio disclosure. Even if pay ratio disclosure does not become legally mandated, our results suggest that firms with (low) pay ratios relative to competitors may wish to begin to disclose this information voluntarily, as a means of garnering favorable consumer perceptions.”
- The Church of England demands employers pay staff at least the living wage.
- “The high level of executive pay, quite righty, remains a burning issue with the media & British public”. Sachan Sadan, Director Corporate Governance, Legal and General Investment Management, UK.
Both the Church and the investment company were criticized for not practicing what they preached. Church was paying some of its staff less than the living wage and the investment bankers were generally the highest paid executives in the economy.
However, the disparity between the high level of executive pay and the ordinary employee is a growing concern across the globe. The correction will have to be done for the workers sooner or later. This will affect the bottom line of the companies. The buffer is the excessive pay for executives at the top. In some organized and large manufacturing companies, the unions have also raised the question of abnormally higher pay of the executives and the scene will become noisier in the days to come.