Should our Top Management take a Pay Cut in such extraordinary circumstances ?

Hi Members,

From here it seems (personally I feel it is still in a distant horizon) that the ways and methods of doing business by top echelons of management are going to change.

Prep-talk from most of world's CEO's and MD's to their staff will now shift from speaking about capturing "market share", "sales targets" and so on (incl Indian CEO's too). And they would now ideally concentrate on new magic words such as

1. Corporate Governance,
2. Accountability,
3. Risk Management (most organization have this, however it was considered more of a cost center, still is)

Most of the above words were definitely being used and most would agree that the tendency was to regard it as a " tick the box " mentality. The attitude was basically, " Yes, we have an excellent Corporate Governance policy and well documented one too, the Board of Directors have thoroughly checked it and included it in its annual report. Therefore there is no issue with the corporation ."

But Satyam did happen, didn't it ? Ironically Satyam had received an award for Corporate Governance almost a month or two ago ; so this automatically changes the things. Satyam was an IT company but there are many more Satyam's waiting to happen, specifically in an economic meltdown situation where no country a developed one or a developing one is safe.

At such times top echelons of management paying themselves huge amount of packages, incentives and bonuses is by itself criminogenic in nature. The US President has taken a conscious decision on this issue and has capped the pay-packages of all financial institutions head honchos some thing equivalent to his annual salary of USD 500,000 annually. Until the stimulus money provided by the government is returned to the federal treasury this would continue. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090204/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bailout_executive_pay)

Q : Can our present political establishment initiate such steps till the recessionary trend starts to improve and will our head honchos accept such an decision if taken by government in the interest of country and its people ?