• 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.