Corporate income inequality and corporate performance: Any correlations?

Income inequality has been an important concern for scholars and practitioners alike. Concerns about income inequality contributed to both the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Bill of Rights in 1689. Despite steady progress over the centuries towards the equality ideal, which has continued to be elusive, income inequality has increased significantly in the past 30 years. Shareholder dominance through the encroachment of Anglo-American style globalisation and its corresponding model of corporate governance has led to a meteoric rise of executive compensation as well as the 2008 global financial meltdown, resulting in economic depression affecting billions of ordinary citizens around the globe (Kakabadse et al., 2004; Clarke, 2009; Pryce et al., 2011; Tse, 2011). At the centre of the global financial crisis (GFC) spawned by the prevalence of the Anglo-Saxon shareholder model is the explosion of executive compensation, which in addition to generating debate in both academic and political circles has triggered public anger as exemplified by the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) rallies during the last quarter of 2011 and the associated citizens’ ‘actions’ in over 600 cities across the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia (Rushe, 2011).