Emory University | Goizueta Business School
  Goizueta Business Library Goizueta Business Library

The Credibility Consequences of Managers' Decisions to Provide Warnings About Unexpected Earnings

The Credibility Consequences of Managers' Decisions to Provide Warnings About Unexpected Earnings
Author(s): Mercer, Molly
Year: 2002
Paper Number: GBS-ACC-2002-003
Goizueta Department: Accounting

Full text available as:
PDF - Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader or other PDF viewer.

Abstract

This study provides a theoretical framework and experimental evidence on how managers' disclosure decisions affect their credibility with investors. Further, I examine whether investors' judgments of management credibility are based on different factors in the short- and longer-term. My results show that in the short-term, management disclosure decisions regarding negative news have larger effects on perceived management credibility than disclosure decisions regarding positive news. Specifically, managers who warn investors about unexpected negative news are rewarded with greater credibility increases than managers who warn about unexpected positive news, and managers who fail to warn about unexpected negative news are penalized with greater credibility decreases than managers who fail to warn about unexpected positive news. The results also show that these short-term credibility effects do not persist over time. In the longer-term, managers who report positive earnings news are rated as having higher credibility than managers who report negative earnings news, regardless of their disclosure decisions.

Keywords:voluntary disclosure, management credibility, judgment and decision-making
Subjects:Business > Accounting
Notes:Registration required for access to full-text papers on ssrn.com molly_mercer@bus.emory.edu Emory University - Department of Accounting Goizueta Business School 1300 Clifton Road Atlanta , GA 30322 United States 404-727-7079 (Phone) 404-727-6313 (Fax)
Deposited On:11 August 2005
Alternative Locations:http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=311100
http://business.library.emory.edu