Section 403 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act accelerates the reporting deadline of executive stock option grants to be within two business days after the grants. This study investigates the effect of Section 403 on the extent of CEO influence over grant date stock prices aimed at enhancing the value of...

This study seeks to provide insights into companies' decisions to issue stock options to CEOs on a scheduled or an unscheduled basis. We first document that unscheduled option awards provide CEOs with greater flexibility to influence the grant date stock price that leads to a lower exercise...

This paper investigates whether weak corporate governance is a contributing factor to the incidence of backdating executive stock option awards. Based on a sample of Samp;P 1500 firms that exhibit evidence of backdating, we find that firms with weaker governance structures that allow CEOs to...