• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.149-182
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• 2007

This study examines the determinants of the long-run stock price performance of the firms that granted stock options between 1997 and 2002. We divide the sample into the firms run by the owner and those run by the professional manager. If the primary reason for granting stock options is reduction of the agency costs between the manager and shareholders, the effect of stock options is likely to be more pronounced in the firms run by the professional manager. We find that the long-run abnormal returns of the firms run by the professional manager are negatively associated with the shareholdings by the manager and the book-to-market value and are positively associated with the earnings growth and the size of the outstanding stock options. In contrast, the long-run abnormal returns of the firms run by the owner are negatively associated with the cash flows rate and the sales growth rate and are positively associated with the firm size. This is consistent with the argument that the agency costs arising from the conflicts between the manager and shareholders are an important determinant of the post-stock option granting long-run stock price performance only in the firms run by the professional manager. The results also suggest that stock options in the firms run by the owner are likely to be used for the purposes such as additional compensation, a signaling device, a means that reduce the agency costs within firms.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.113-134
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between foreign ownership and firm value. Based on the sample of 3,398 firm-year observations in the period of 2000 to 2007, we find evidence that foreign ownership is positively associated with firm value measured by the market-to-book ratio. In addition, we employ simultaneous equation system where both foreign ownership and firm value are treated as endogenous variables. Simultaneous regression models indicate that the foreign ownership affects firm value, but not vice versa. The positive effects of foreign ownership on firm value result from monitoring and disciplining roles played by foreign investors. Many Korean firms have been run by an owner-manager while monitoring provided by institutional equity holders has been limited. Therefore, Korean firms are expected to suffer from more severe agency costs caused by the conflicts of interest between owner-managers and outside investors. Our empirical results support the notion that foreign investors play an important role in enhancing corporate transparency and improving corporate governance.