I often serve as an expert legal witness in the area of executive compensation. Working in this field for several decades I have been baffled by the causes of the geometric growth I see.
The obvious causes are "good old boy" behavior and interpersonal CEO competition.
But the pattern is too widespread for that to be a suitable explanation.
My
current theory is that Americans (this is a particularly American
issue), with their casual dress at work, and work ethic that evolved in
hippy times, have very little respect for supervision. Possibly
Americans have less respect for supervision than other national groups.
The consequence is that, the more pyramidal an organization is, the greater salary differences have to be to make supervision work. Americans respect money and wages, consequently they are induced to accept supervision and respect supervisors because their supervisors are well paid.
Does that make sense to you?
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