Purpose – This paper aims to examine the relationship between firms’ decisions to expense employee stock options (ESOs) under the voluntary period of Statement of Financial Accounting Standard No. 123 (SFAS 123) and their market-to-book (MTB-1) ratio and conditional conservatism....

Purpose –This paper aims to examine the relationship between firms’ decisions to expense employee stock options (ESOs) under the voluntary period of Statement of Financial Accounting Standard No. 123 (SFAS 123) and their market-to-book (MTB-1) ratio and conditional conservatism. Conservatism...