The global financial crisis and the economic recession that started in early 2008, brought forth important questions in terms of corporate governance, executive pay packages, globalization trends, sustainability, and competitive strategy in the interconnected world economy. The crisis intensified the transformation of ongoing trends in the underlying drivers of global business conditions within the international business environment. This study examined the role of firm performance, internationality, innovation intensity and firm size in determining CEO executive compensation in multinational enterprises. The sample data of 1,950 observations from 488 companies over a period of four years (2008-2011) were collected .