The Adoption and Maintenance of Executive Stock Option Plan （ESOP）＂ Company Characteristics Evaluation in Indonesia

This paper investigates company characteristics associated with the adoption and maintenance of executive stock option plan （ESOP） proxied with the proportion of stock options. In order to develop and inform public policies of executive stock options, it is important to understand some of the factors that will drive a company＇s decision in order to adopt an ESOP. First, an analysis evaluates what kind of company＇s characteristics is associated with these plans. Second, an analysis examines the company characteristics that predict the adoption of such plans. This paper contributes to that stream of accounting research by identifying several factors to the adoption of ESOP. The study finds that intellectual capital （consisting of human capital efficiency （HCE）, structural capital efficiency （SCE）, and capital employed efficiency （CEE））, risk, and financial constraints （FC） affect the adoption and maintenance of stock option plans, these conditions will be increasingly supported in companies that experience relatively rapid growth. HCE, risk, and FC are significant predictors of the adoption and maintenance of ESOP. The companies who have some difficulties in observing human capital＇s behavior are more likely to adopt executive stock options, and based on our theoretical review, this is a rational course of action. Firms with higher levels of business risks are less likely to shift some of the risks to employees through stock-based compensation, whereas firms with higher variability in total shareholder returns are more likely to adopt executive stock options. Overall, our results suggest that higher monitoring costs prompt firms to adopt and maintain ESOP.

ROE as a performance measure in performance-vested stock option contracts in China

In this paper, we hand-collect the performance measures adopted in performance-vested stock option plans in China. We find that return on equity （ROE） is a widely used performance measure. Different from most of the other performance measures, ROE is affected by the number of shares outstanding. When executive compensation contracts are explicitly tied to ROE performance, in order to avoid the reduction in reported ROE through the issuance of additional common shares （i.e., ROE dilution）, managers have an incentive to influence ROE performance through financing decisions. We find that managers are more likely to avoid ROE dilution related to debt-versus-equity choice when their performance-vested stock option plans are explicitly tied to ROE performance and when firms have a high level of access to bank loans. However, there is no such link for firms with a low level of access to bank loans. Our study shows that the association between executive compensation design and corporate financing decisions depends on the accessibility of bank loans, demonstrating the importance of institutional factors in China. The results hold after controlling for potential endogeneity in executive compensation and corporate financing decisions. Our study contributes to both the executive compensation and corporate finance literature.