Firms that offer more-generous stock options to non-executive employees are more innovative, according to research led by Xin Chang at Nanyang Business School, in Singapore. Firms in the 75th percentile in terms of stock options per employee applied for 96% more patents and received 105% more quality-adjusted patent citations than firms in the 25th percentile, by that measure. The research fits with previous work suggesting that employees have more reason to innovate when their incentives are tied to the long-term success of the firm.
Source: When Treating Workers Well Leads to More Innovation
