Current Practices in Stock Option Plan Design

Who gets stock options? How many? How often? And when? Many companies and professional advisors are familiar with how employee stock option plans work, but they lack detailed information on how companies are actually designing and using their plans. This498-page book describes and analyzes the results of a pathbreaking survey of 247 U.S. companies conducted by the leading research and information organization in the field. The book is the most comprehensive resource available to the public on how companies design stock option plans. It mainly focuses on broad-based stock option plans (i.e., those covering most employees), but also addresses executive-only plans and employee stock purchase plans. The results presented here allow readers to make comparisons on allocation, vesting, and eligibility issues, as well as on corporate-level issues of dilution, the percentage of total option awards going to certain kinds of employees, the basis on which options are awarded, and other...