The chief marketing officer (CMO) is typically held accountable for generating firm revenue growth, but it is unclear whether current top management team (TMT) compensation practices, focused on an external benchmarking process, best align CMO behavior with this outcome. Drawing on equity theory, we explore how CMO pay (i.e., salary), relative to external and internal referents, impacts revenue growth. Using over 20 years of data for 457 public U. S. firms, we find that CMO-CFO relative pay (i.e., the Chief Finance Officer) positively relates to firm revenue growth, but CMO pay relative to the industry median does not. Further examination reveals an asymmetry in the effect for CMO-CFO relative pay—when CMOs are paid above the CFO, there is no impact on revenue growth, but when CMOs are paid below the CFO, there is a strong association to revenue growth (i.e., hampering growth), as such pay inequity can be particularly demotivating. Moderation analysis using CMO tenure provides support for this mechanistic pathway. Weaker evidence is found for the effect between CMO-highest paid TMT member relative pay and revenue growth, and no relationship between CMO-CEO relative pay and revenue growth is observed. Findings support the CFO as a key CMO pay referent and indicate that the common practice of using predominantly external benchmarks to determine CMO pay is not optimal, providing valuable insight and guidance to better align CMO pay and firm growth.

首席营销官 （CMO） 通常负责实现公司收入增长，但目前尚不清楚当前专注于外部基准流程的高层管理团队 （TMT） 薪酬实践是否最好地使 CMO 行为与这一结果保持一致。借鉴公平理论，我们探讨了 CMO 薪酬（即薪水）相对于外部和内部参考因素如何影响收入增长。使用 457 家美国上市公司 20 多年的数据，我们发现 CMO-CFO 的相对薪酬（即首席财务官）与公司收入增长呈正相关，但 CMO 薪酬相对于行业中位数则没有。进一步检查揭示了 CMO-CFO 相对薪酬影响的不对称性——当 CMO 的薪酬高于 CFO 时，对收入增长没有影响，但当 CMO 的薪酬低于 CFO 时，与收入增长有很强的关联（即阻碍增长），因为这种薪酬不平等可能特别令人沮丧。使用 CMO 任期的调节分析为这种机制途径提供了支持。关于 CMO 薪酬最高的 TMT 成员相对薪酬与收入增长之间影响的证据较弱，并且未观察到 CMO-CEO 相对薪酬与收入增长之间的关系。研究结果支持 CFO 是关键的 CMO 薪酬参考，并表明主要使用外部基准来确定 CMO 薪酬的常见做法并不是最佳做法，这为更好地使 CMO 薪酬与公司增长保持一致提供了有价值的见解和指导。