"Now, there's a paradigm shift happening." Reuters cites Cabot as an outlier, a company that has policies in place to incentivize shareholder returns, not simply growth. These policies include executive compensation that takes into account cost controls, as well as allowing shares for executives to be vested after three years rather than immediately, forcing management to focus on long-term goals rather than short-term gratification. The result has been a sharp improvement in the company's share price, outpacing its competitors. In fact, a few other shale companies that have emphasized shareholder returns have also performed better than the rest of the pack. EOG Resources' share price is up 96 percent since 2012, tracking the broader S&P 500 pretty closely. Range Resources, on the other hand, only recently implemented new incentives to get away from the growth-at-all-costs compensation style-its share price is down nearly 70 percent since 2012, according to a Reuters analysis.