The Conference Board, NASDAQ OMX and NYSE Euronext jointly released the 2013 edition of Director Compensation and Board Practices, a benchmarking study with more than 150 corporate governance data points searchable by company size (measurable by revenue and asset value) and 20 industrial sectors.

The report is based on a survey of public companies registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, Stanford University’s Rock Center for Corporate Governance, the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI), the Shareholder Forum and Compliance Week also endorsed the survey by distributing it to their members and readers.

The following are the major findings from the 2013 edition of the study:

• Directors are best compensated in the energy industry, but company size can make a huge difference. Computer services companies are the most generous with full value share awards, but equity-based compensation is widely used across industries and irrespective of company size.
• Stock options are not as favored as they used to be, except by the smallest companies Increasing skepticism on the effectiveness of stock options and stock appreciation rights as long-term incentives has led to their decline, especially in the last few years.
• Additional cash retainer for board chairmen is seldom offered by larger companies, which are more likely to reward lead directors.
• A corporate program financing the matching of personal charitable contributions is the most common among the director perquisites reported by companies.
• While many nonexecutive directors have C-suite experience, former or current CFOs are less represented than expected in the board of financial services companies.
• Larger financial services companies often set stricter director independence requirements than national securities exchanges.
• While larger companies continue to combine CEO and board chairman positions, three-quarters of financial institutions have appointed an independent lead.
• Majority voting is being increasingly embraced even among smaller companies, but incumbents failing to obtain the required votes are rarely expected to resign.
• According to the director nomination policy of large companies, diversity matters as much as business skills. Yet, aside from some level of female representation, corporate boards remain remarkably uniform.
• Most smaller companies save board search firm fees and use personal connections to recruit new director nominees.
• Proxy access rights and reimbursement of solicitation expenses remain marginal practices.
• While traditional takeover defenses (including poison pills and board classification) are being dismantled, large financial companies tend to restrict action by written consent and prohibit special meetings called by shareholders.
• Directors of large company boards take a corporate aircraft to travel to board meetings, unless it is a financial institution.
• Financial services companies of all size are ahead in the use of secure online technology for intra-board communication.
• While an annual say-on-pay vote appears to be the standard for most companies, almost one-third of the smallest financial institutions opt for a less frequent consultation of shareholders.
• While designing new executive compensation policies, large financial companies set equity retention periods and go above and beyond regulatory requirements in the formulation of contractual clawback clauses.
• Large companies are more likely to enforce anti-gross-up policies.
• Compensation benchmarking disclosure also tends to be a feature of larger companies, with industry and company size the most frequently used criteria in the selection of the peer-comparison group.
• Compensation consultant fees tend to be lower than the amount for which disclosure is required.
• While directors of smaller companies collaborate directly with management in the business strategy setting process, larger company boards review strategy more frequently than others.
• Frequency of risk reporting to the board and institution of chief risk office reveal the differing state of risk governance practices among industry groups.
• Responsibility for sustainability oversight depends on company size, with larger companies elevating it to the board committee level and smaller companies delegating it to the CEO.
• Environmental impact and, for financial services companies, data security are among the main sustainability items in board agenda.
• Boards of directors at almost half of the smallest companies (as measured by annual revenue) do not review political contribution practices, while formal policies for senior business leader are seldom in place.
• Small companies do not have a board process for the systematic and periodic review of their CEO succession plan.
• Formal policies on board retention of the departing CEO are uncommon, except in large companies where the CEO is formally required to also leave the board.
• Formal board-shareholder engagement policies begin to emerge, and may include the requirement for director to actively participate in annual shareholder meetings as well as the adoption of a protocol detailing when and how shareholder can reach out to directors and expect a response to a material query.
• Large financial companies are less inclined to use an over-boarding policy as it may impair their ability to attract director talent.
• More than one-third of companies with less than $100 million in revenue do not periodically evaluate their director performance.
• Approximately two companies out of 10 require their board members to attend some type of continuing education programs to remain abreast of regulatory and compliance developments.
• As the workload and challenges facing board committees increase, member rotation policies remain infrequent.

This article is an extract from : The 2013 Director Compensation and Board Practices Report , the harvard blog.