Congressional Research Service. June 15, 2012.

The practice of granting a company’s employees options to purchase the company’s stock has become widespread among American businesses. Employee stock options have been praised as innovative compensation plans that help align the interests of the employees with those of the shareholders. They have also been condemned as schemes to enrich insiders and avoid company taxes.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31458.pdf [PDF format, 20 pages].