Abstract: Incentive is an effective way to stimulate the management to improve firm performance. And many firms have done it. The study has analyzed the performance flexibility of CEO compensation with the sample of listed companies in recent years in China. The result suggests there is flexibility between CEO compensation and firm performance to some extent, but it is lower. And there is no significant relation between the flexibility and future performance. These results suggest the incentive effect of CEO compensation is not significant in China and the study also analyses the possible reason.