The effect of stock option repricing on employee turnover

We examine whether repricing underwater stock options reduces executive and overall employee turnover using a sample of firms that reprice stock options in 1998 and a sample of firms with underwater stock options that choose not to reprice. We find little evidence that repricing affects executive turnover. However, using forfeited stock options to proxy for overall employee turnover, we find that 1999 employee turnover is negatively related to the 1998 repricing, suggesting that repricing helps prevent turnover due to underwater options. We find no evidence that the relation between turnover and repricing differs between high technology and nonhigh technology firms. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.