This report summarizes the findings of the 2003 WorldatWork survey on stock option expensing practices and opinions. For the second year in a row, WorldatWork surveyed a sample of members -- mostly compensation professionals in Fortune 1000 organizations -- in July to gain perspectives on common practices and changes regarding stock options and the issue of expensing.
In July 2003, surveys were sent electronically to a random representative sample of 6,229 WorldatWork members. A total of 413 responses were received, a 7-percent response rate. Because the demographic profile of the 413 survey respondents is similar to the WorldatWork membership as a whole, the responses can be considered statistically representative of the membership.
The WorldatWork membership generally consists of professionals at the manager level and higher, working in the headquarters of a large company in North America. The association's membership tends to be from larger companies: 95 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies have at least one employee who is a WorldatWork member.
This report summarizes the results of a WorldatWork member survey, conducted jointly by WorldatWork and Sibson Consulting/The Segal Company in September and October 2003. The purpose of the survey was to update a survey data set initially gathered in early 2002 regarding common practices and trends related to the administration of stock option compensation programs within publicly held companies.
A representative random sample of 5,751 WorldatWork members was sent an e-mail invitation Sept. 25, 2003, containing a link to the online survey. When the survey closed Oct. 2, a total of 642 responses had been received (a 10 percent response rate). The results in the report, however, relate to the 336 respondents who were from publicly traded companies.
