We study games in which the decision to exercise an option is a signal of private information to outsiders, whose beliefs a¤ect the utility of the decision maker. Signaling incentives distort the timing of exercise, and the direction of distortion depends on whether the decisionmaker's utility increases or decreases in outsiders'belief about the payo¤ from exercise. In the former case, signaling incentives erode the value of the option to wait and speed up option exercise, while in the latter

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... se option exercise is delayed. We demonstrate the model's implications through four corporate ...nance settings: investment under managerial myopia, venture capital grandstanding, investment under cash ‡ow diversion, and product market competition.