Title: Determinants of stock options awards: evidence from French firms

Authors: Mohamed Imen Gallali; Mehdi Bouras

Addresses: Business School of Tunis (ESCT), Manouba University, Campus Universitaire de la Manouba, 2010 Manouba, Tunisia ' Business School of Tunis (ESCT), Manouba University, Campus Universitaire de la Manouba, 2010 Manouba, Tunisia

Abstract: The literature on managers' compensation points out several factors specific to firms and to the determinants of stock options awards. At the empirical level, most studies focused on market-oriented governance mechanisms [studies on the US context (Yermack, 1995; Tzioumis, 2008)] or network-oriented systems [studies on the Japanese context (Uchida, 2006)]. We attempt to determine the factors behind stock options awards in a country characterised by a mixed governance system (market- and network-oriented) which is France. We conducted our study on a sample of 152 firms listed on the French stock market (the SBF250 index) during the 2002-2009 period. The results supported the hypothesis that the factors behind managers' stock option compensation are firm size, growth opportunities, manager's age, dividend distribution and ownership concentration.

Keywords: agency theory; manager compensation; stock options; panel data; Tobit model; France; mixed governance; market-oriented systems; network-oriented systems; stock option compensation; firm size; growth opportunities; age; dividend distribution; ownership concentration.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBGE.2012.051224

International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, 2012 Vol.7 No.4, pp.279 - 300

Published online: 28 Dec 2012 *

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