It looks like 2010 was a boom year for CEO compensation.

According to a new analysis of proxies conducted by Towers Watson, median total cash compensation increased 17 percent for CEOs last year. This compares with a 3 percent median increase the prior year. To compute cash compensation, the consulting firm includes base salary, as well as annual and discretionary bonus payments.

It is the big question facing every company that needs to replace top management or even low level management. Promote from within or reach outside the firm?

Well, a new study found that when it comes to hiring chief executive officers at publicly traded companies, shareholders should urge the board to promote from within.

What do CFOs worry about the most?  What's their biggest challenge?

The answer: time management and keeping up with changing technology, according to a study from Robert Half Management Resources.

Employers, beware. Your overworked employees may not be around much longer.

Once they sense the job market has improved, they plan to bolt and let the door close on their immediate boss.

We've heard a lot about how high-growth startups generate more jobs than other small businesses. Now there's evidence so-called entrepreneurial public companies create more employment than other firms of the same size.

The findings are from research by Joel Shulman, an associate professor at Babson College who also runs a newly created mutual fund called EntrepreneurShares Mutual Fund . It invests in 400 companies defined as entrepreneurial according to 15 core factors, including such characteristics as organic growth, an above average ownership stake among key stakeholders, an above average return on investment capital and a long duration of key managers. Companies, which also have a market cap of $200 million and more, range from Apple to Credit Acceptance Corp.

Malicious or criminal attacks on data are on the rise--and so are their costs.

Those are some of the findings of the 2010 US Cost of a Data Breach study from the Ponemon Institute. The benchmark study looked at the experiences of 51 US companies in 15 industry sectors; it's the sixth annual such survey done by Ponemon.