本研究結合勞動經濟領域的兩個理論— Lazear與Rosen (1981)的競賽理論與Spence (1973)的信號理論，探討廠商對外信號傳遞與公司內部薪資結構的關係。本文假設，若廠商向外部傳遞越佳的信號，則公司內部員工層級間的薪資差距會擴大。本篇論文以台灣上市、上櫃的食品業、金融業與半導體業公司做為研究對象，採用隨機效果模型進行實證分析。實證結果顯示，在全體產業方面，廠商在與績效相關的信號(股價、股價報酬率、每股盈餘)表現越佳，對其公司內部薪資差距而言是會有擴大的效果。在個別產業方面，廠商若在企業排名、信用評等、資訊揭露評鑑與績效方面傳遞越佳的信號，則公司內部薪資差距亦會有擴大的效果，唯此結果在金融業並不顯著。上述薪資差距擴大的效果，不僅適用於高階經理人，亦呈現於較低階的員工之間，此種情形是符合競賽理論的預期。In this study, we incorporate the concept of “signaling” proposing by Spence (1973) into the conventional tournament theory proposing by Lazear and Rosen (1981) to examine the effect of firms’ emitted signals on their internal pay schemes. We hypothesize that the better the firms’ emitted signals are, the larger the intra-firm compensation gap will be. To test our hypothesis, we employ Taiwanese listed firm data from the food industry, the financial industry, and the semiconductor industry and analyze it using a random-effects model. The empirical results substantially support our hypothesis. In overall industry, firms obtaining higher values in performance-related signaling variables (stock price, stock returns, and EPS) enlarge their compensation gap. In individual industry, firms performing better in business rankings, credit rating, information disclosure and transparency rankings and performance-related signals widen their compensation gap. Nevertheless, such relationship is insignificant for firms in the financial industry. Furthermore, the empirical evidence shows that the large compensation gap, namely a tournament-type incentive, exists not only among top executives but also among lower-rung workers, conforming to the prediction of tournament theory.
