소유구조와 연구개발비가 경영자-종업원 보상격차에 미치는 영향 : 벤처펀드투자기업을 중심으로

In venture firms where securing excellent human resources is a key factor in success, the manager-employee pay gap can be an important basis for assessing corporate value. There has yet to be any research on the effect of ownership structure on the manager-employee pay gap for venture firms. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the non-linear relationship between ownership and the manager-employee pay gap and to verify how this relationship changes with the capitalization of R&D expenses. This study targeted venture fund-invested firms listed on KOSDAQ from 2011 to 2022. There was a non-linear relationship between the controlling shareholder’s shareholding and the manager-employee pay gap. Additionally, the higher the shareholding of minority shareholders, the smaller the pay gap. These results showed that agency problems can vary depending on the ownership structure in venture firms. R&D expense capitalization was not related to the pay gap. However, the interaction between high minority shareholder ownership and R&D expense capitalization increases the pay gap, so minority shareholders appear to have positively evaluated R&D expense capitalization in calculating managerial compensation. This study contributed to previous research by verifying the non-linear relationship between ownership and the manager-employee pay gap for venture fund-invested firms. This study suggests the need for the introduction of safeguards to restrain controlling shareholders and a shareholder approval system for executive compensation in order to alleviate the agency problem.