BackgroundThe paper aims to review, design and implement a multidimensional performance measurement system for a public research hospital in order to address the complexity of its multifaceted stakeholder requirements and its double institutional aim of care and research.MethodThe methodology relies on a participative case study performed by external researchers in close collaboration with the staff of an Italian research hospital.ResultsThe paper develops and applies a customized version of balanced scorecard based on a new set of performance measures. Our findings suggest that it can be considered an effective framework for measuring the research hospital performance, thanks to a combination of generalizable and context-specific factors.ConclusionsBy showing how the balanced scorecard framework can be customized to research hospitals, the paper is especially of interest for complex healthcare organizations that are implementing management accounting practices. The paper contributes to the body of literature on the application of the balanced scorecard in healthcare through an examination of the challenges in designing and implementing this multidimensional performance tool. This is one of the first papers that show how the balanced scorecard model can be adapted to fit the specific requirements of public research hospitals.

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Grounding in the agency theory, this paper questions whether high quality compensation committee influences the design of executive remuneration towards the alignment of the contrasting interests between managers and shareholders. Relying on a comprehensive approach that captures the compensation committee quality based on different attributes (i.e. independence, interlocking directorates, directors appointed by minorities) we conduct a two-step empirical analysis. First, we illustrate the evolution over time of the stock option plan characteristics and construct an illustrative diagram that shows the linkages between the attributes of the compensation committee quality and the elements of the option plans. Second, we run a probit regression analysis to deeply investigate the picture emerging from the diagram. Our results document that the quality of compensation committee significantly affects the assignment of incentive stock option plans. The paper evidence advances the knowledge in the literature on compensation committee and executive remuneration, by highlighting that structural characteristics of the committee other than independence of its members play a pivotal role in writing effective remuneration contracts for the executives. Our findings are also useful for investors and policymakers.

Stock options (hereafter SOs) have been extensively investigated by the literature. The debate has been mainly grounded in the agency theory that has interpreted these tools as mechanisms to align the conflicting interests of managers and owners towards the shareholder value maximization. However, the latest empirical evidence suggests that SOs are often used by opportunistic managers to extract rents to the detriment of shareholders. In addition, literature identifies the perceived cost as a further theoretical lens to interpret the use of SOs. Despite the growing interest around the topic, the research is still fragmented and fails to present a comprehensive picture on the factors that affect the aim of SOs. Our literature review attempts to fill this gap by providing a systematization of the studies on the topic. The paper concludes by presenting the theoretical and practical implications of the study and suggesting directions for future researc