CEO Salaries in the Crosshairs Pay-for-performance structures are enjoying a resurgence.

Last September, Mission Research formed a compensation committee to discuss capping executive pay and by how much.

Charlie Crystle, co-founder of the 35-employee Lancaster, Pennsylvania, software company, would like to see executive pay limited to seven times the company's median salary, which hovers around $60,000. Mission Research generated $3 million in revenue last year. "We're trying to figure out the right mix of goals and bonuses for our executive team," says Crystle, 41. "It's part of our growing up and becoming a real company." Mission Research plans to implement a new compensation structure early this year.

It's a timely move given recent public rage over executive pay. Anger has been simmering for years, but it boiled over last fall amid the taxpayer-funded bailout of the financial sector. Watching CEOs glide away from failed companies with multimillion-dollar severance packages has the public questioning with renewed vigor whether corporate executives are worth what they're paid.