I have question regarding granting long term options to senior executives.

The grant of long-term options in a company's stock to that company's senior executives is a common compensation and retention strategy employed by Boards of Directors. These options are typically set with exercise prices above the current price of the company's stock and they are usually exercisable at any time after a multi-year vesting period. So what do we infer in terms of nature of these options

a) whether they are a put or a call,

(b) whether thay are in-, at-, or out-of-the-money, and (ii) their exercise style.

and what do you think, why are these options typically considered to be quite valuable?

and which practice do you find to be more insidious with regard to these executive options grants, "back-dating" or "spring-loading"?