Il compenso degli amministratori legato alla sostenibilità: un'analisi della letteratura e suggerimenti per la ricerca futura

Sustainability and ESG (Environmental, social and governance) issue have received increasing attention from regulators, governments and companies of all sizes. This is because there is a growing awareness on climate change, social inequalities, biodiversity losses which led companies to introduce corporate governance mechanisms such as manager compensation based on sustainability goals. This study aims to analyse ESG factors that have been included in the remuneration system of executives by investigating the effectiveness of their implementation. Therefore, a detailed analysis of the literature review will analyse the evolution of the phenomenon from executive compensation to ESG pay compensation. The first part of the thesis introduces the executive remuneration contracts and then analyse regulations and standards that have supported sustainability-linked executive compensation incentives. Then, the study provides a detailed analysis of the various academic studies analysing the theories that could explain the phenomenon of ESG pay compensation and identifying determinants and effects of ESG pay compensation in the remuneration of executives. Finally, the study includes a concluding part highlighting the main academic themes in the field of ESG pay compensation and the possible suggestions for future research to solve some gaps which have not been analysed yet. Overall, this research contributes to the literature because it suggests some new research stream on this field, and have practical implications for companies which have begun to adopt in remuneration. The goal is to understand whether the use of ESG pay is really useful to achieve better companies’ ESG performance.