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Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study evaluates whether an association exists between the agency incentives of the audit committee chair and voluntary disclosure of their monitoring activities in their audit committee report. Prior research suggests that a shift toward greater voluntary disclosure in the audit committee report occurred following the passage of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act but does not directly address the determinants of voluntary disclosure. Consistent with agency theory, audit committee chairs signal their duty-specific monitoring activities to shareholders, possibly to protect their reputation and justify their compensation. Within a high-litigation industry, this study provides evidence that audit committee chairs with a greater reputation level (i.e., more public company directorships) provide more concise duty-specific voluntary disclosure when serving companies with high levels of agency conflicts. This provides evidence consistent with efficiency in the market for audit committee chairs. This study also provides evidence that audit committee chairs respond to likely shareholder concerns by providing more concise duty-specific voluntary disclosure when their company has previously restated its financials. Finally, audit committee chairs provide increased voluntary disclosure specifically related to external audit oversight when high agency conflicts exist. As a whole, this contributes to the existing audit committee literature by providing evidence that voluntary disclosure incentives for financial reporting are also important determinants of more qualitative compliance-based reporting in the proxy statement. This has implications for accounting and governance practitioners as voluntary audit committee report disclosure offers shareholders detailed information that they may use in evaluating audit committee monitoring performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Management earnings forecasts (MEFs) may reduce information risk by corroborating the inferences that lenders draw from their private communication with borrowers. Consistent with this idea, we find that among firms with a general policy of issuing MEFs, those providing MEFs in the 6 months before loan origination with a forecast horizon beyond the origination date enjoy lower loan spreads. The frequency and precision of MEFs are also negatively associated with loan spreads. The associations are stronger when lenders' need for corroboration of their private information is expected to be greater. The associations are not driven by a firm's general information environment, signaling of managerial ability, opportunistic disclosure, or competition between public and private debt markets. Moreover, the issuance, frequency, and precision of MEFs are associated with loan amounts more spread out among participating lenders, suggesting that MEFs also reduce information asymmetry within a loan syndicate. Our study provides insight into the corroboration role of publicly disseminated MEFs in private loan markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Existing research on advertising structures in a supply chain has mainly been conducted with symmetric quality information and the interaction between quality information disclosure and advertising has not been clarified. To identify the optimal advertising structure and disclosure strategy for a manufacturer, we explore manufacturer advertising and cooperative advertising in the context of product quality information asymmetry. We examine the implications of the manufacturer's product quality information disclosure on his advertising strategies and the impact of advertising on quality information disclosure decisions. When cooperative advertising is more effective than manufacturer advertising and the product quality is low, the manufacturer should adopt manufacturer advertising, which leads to higher perceived quality and improves the retailer's economic condition. We find that advertising can inspire the manufacturer to disclose more product quality information regardless of the advertising structure, which occurs when the effectiveness of advertising is large. Furthermore, the manufacturer, the retailer, and consumers can benefit from cooperative advertising when cooperative advertising is more effective than manufacturer advertising and the product quality is high. We also consider an extension where the manufacturer and retailer advertise simultaneously and find that advertising leads to more quality information being disclosed when the disclosure cost is low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing research has examined instances of voluntarily disclosed nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), including how people with lived experience are impacted when they choose to share their NSSI with others. Voluntary disclosure, however, represents just one way that NSSI experiences become known to others; NSSI can also be discovered involuntarily, yet little to no research has explored the impact of these experiences. To understand the impact of these Involuntary Discovery Experiences (IDEs) the present study recruited 139 university students (Mage = 19.13, SD = 2.12; nfemale = 121) with lived experience of NSSI and who reported having a past IDE. Participants took part in an online study involving a series of open-ended questions concerning their past IDEs. A thematic analysis of their responses pointed to three overarching psychological impacts of IDEs: I felt Stigmatized and Marginalized, Things did not go well, and I No Longer felt Alone in my experience. These findings offer initial insights into the ways people with lived experience of NSSI may be impacted by IDEs and point to several new important research avenues. The current findings also suggest that clinicians may need to ask clients about any potential IDEs and their impact in order to best support clients who self-injure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigates the competitive economic advantage of voluntary integrated reporting (IR) disclosures by publicly listed companies in Bangladesh. Thematic analysis of fifteen semi-structured interview transcripts reveals that investors consider both financial and non-financial factors where the emphasis is placed on the economic, business model, and governance factors. Many investors lack IR knowledge, whereas IR-familiar investors do not even regard IR adoption as value-adding due to certain limiting factors. A bit longer time frame and a developed market ecosystem are required to comment on the significance of IR for investment decisions in Bangladesh. Additionally, from an institutional theoretical lens, this study stipulates how an efficient capital market will trigger both the demand and supply of IR information and make voluntary IR adoption value relevant for appraising investment targets. It brings forward an important notion that fixing the capital market environment should be emphasized before attempts to make IR mandatory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synopsis The research problem This study examines the capital market consequences of the voluntary disclosure of individual auditor information. Specifically, we examined whether and how the disclosure of auditor qualification certificates is associated with information asymmetry and investors' responses to earnings. Motivation Regulators have recently started to focus on disclosing auditor information beyond their names such as in China, where it is increasingly important in practice. Although prior studies have demonstrated benefits associated with the mandatory disclosure of partners' names, there is relatively little evidence of the usefulness of additional information about individual auditors that could be provided voluntarily. This study sheds light on the economic consequences of disclosing detailed information about individual auditors and extends the voluntary disclosure literature. The test hypotheses We tested the following hypotheses in this study: (a) voluntary disclosure of auditor qualification certificates is associated with lower information asymmetry and (b) voluntary disclosure of auditor qualification certificates is not associated with investors' reactions to corporate earnings announcements. Target population Stakeholders of listed companies and audit firms, including company managers, investors, and accounting regulators. Adopted methodology Ordinary least squares regressions, archival data, interviews, and machine learning methods to obtain initial data. Analyses We first crawled the annual audit reports of listed companies in China and used machine learning methods to capture voluntary disclosure of auditor qualification certificates. In a sample of more than 14,000 Chinese company-years from 2012 to 2018, we identified 10.5% of the observations voluntarily disclosing auditor qualification certificates. We used the bid-ask spread as the proxy of information asymmetry, and the earnings response coefficient refers to the coefficient on unexpected earnings to the cumulative abnormal returns. Findings We found that the voluntary disclosure of auditor qualification certificates is associated with lower information asymmetry and stronger market reaction to earnings announcements. The main results hold through various robustness tests. Cross-sectional analyses show that this association is less pronounced when a company employs a larger audit firm or has higher analyst coverage. Further, the specific information conveyed by the auditor qualification certificate, such as the auditor's facial trustworthiness, helps explain the economic consequences associated with voluntary auditor qualification certificate disclosure. Moreover, an initial disclosure of auditor qualification certificates is associated with greater effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate whether regional social capital is associated with a company's discretionary disclosures of non-GAAP earnings. The US county level social capital is used to capture the informal supervisory instrument of regional social capital. The two dimensions of social capital, dense networks and strong norms in regions with high social capital, cause reciprocity, integrity, and organizational citizenship. Using a panel of US companies, we find that companies located in regions with high social capital (1) are more likely to disclose non-GAAP earnings, and (2) their non-GAAP earnings disclosures have higher quality. These findings are robust to controlling for demographic features, substitute proxies for regional social capital, and using two-stage least squares and propensity score matching approaches. Furthermore, we implement a mediator analysis and show that companies in high social capital regions have lower costs of equity capital because they are more likely to disclose non-GAAP earnings, and their disclosures are of higher quality. Overall, the findings indicate that the informal institutional factor of regional social capital is associated with the crucial voluntary disclosure tool of managers' non-GAAP earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I investigate whether algorithmic trading (AT) affects the provision of management guidance. Existing research finds that AT decreases fundamental information acquisition before earnings announcements and consequently reduces the informativeness of prices. To compensate for reduced information acquisition, I predict and find that managers at firms with more AT activity increase the quantity and quality of guidance issued at earnings announcements. Evidence is consistent with managers responding to reduced information acquisition, as opposed to changes in liquidity, and results suggest guidance in response to AT is effective at reducing information asymmetry. These findings identify a new channel through which AT affects stock price informativeness by documenting a link to managers' disclosure decisions. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: G14; G19; G10. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide the first evidence after Regulation G on firms' non-GAAP EPS denominator choices and whether they are informative or opportunistic. From 2013 to 2019, 17 percent of annual non-GAAP EPS numbers use denominators different from that of GAAP diluted EPS, which makes denominator adjustments among the most prevalent individual types of non-GAAP adjustments. For firms reporting GAAP and non-GAAP profits or GAAP losses and non-GAAP profits, we provide evidence consistent with denominator adjustments increasing non-GAAP EPS informativeness. Our evidence also suggests that opportunism in denominator choices is concentrated in firms reporting GAAP losses and non-GAAP profits and failing to adjust the denominator. Such nonadjustment is inconsistent with SEC requirements to report non-GAAP EPS "on a diluted basis" because the EPS denominator for a GAAP loss excludes dilutive claims. Although the SEC largely overlooks such firms, they are more likely, on average, to report non-GAAP EPS that analysts consider inflated. JEL Classifications: M40; M41; M48. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to examine the influence of voluntary disclosure on bank value in Pakistan, considering the moderating effect of corporate governance characteristics: ownership control, board independence and board size. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses data from 20 listed Pakistani banks for the period 2011–2021. The estimation contains robust fixed effect and its assumptions, and a model of standard error with panel corrections. Findings: The findings revealed a weak positive impact of voluntary disclosure on bank value. However, the increase in the number of independent directors strengthens the positive impact of voluntary disclosure on a bank's value. Conversely, increasing the ownership concentration, and board size (other than independent directors) may strongly decrease the impact of voluntary disclosure on a bank's value in Pakistan. Research limitations/implications: The study's limitations include its exclusive focus on the Pakistani banking industry. Future research should take into account newer contexts and data. The findings suggest that future research should investigate the topic in various contexts, including a comparison of Islamic and conventional banks. Practical implications: The practical implications for Pakistani banks emphasize transparency, board composition and ownership structure. In terms of managerial implications, using independent directors, aligning ownership interests and addressing disclosure challenges are highlighted. Originality/value: Focusing on independent directors, ownership concentration and board size, this study enhances knowledge of the impact of voluntary disclosure on bank value in Pakistan. It contributes to agency theory and the literature in this domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study had set out to evaluate if there are any positive or negative effects of voluntary disclosure on the financial performance of commercial banks in Kenya. Secondly, this study to establish whether voluntary disclosure has any effect on the value of the firm as well as on the cost of capital. Hence provide evidence on the effects of voluntary disclosure on the financial performance of commercial banks in Kenya. This study used a descriptive research design based on secondary data obtained from published statements of accounts of commercial banks in Kenya and CBK. The population of this study used 42 commercial banks registered by the Central Bank of Kenya and operating in Kenya. The study was based on secondary data collection since they provide a more realistic conclusion to meet the objectives of the study. Data was mainly collected from the publicly available information that was the published annual reports of a sample of 20 from 44 commercial banks in Kenya. The study was carried out for a period of 6 years from 2008 to 2013. The variables used in the study consisted of a dependent and four independent variables. The dependent variable was return on equity which is a proxy for measuring financial performance. The determinants of voluntary disclosure were used as a proxy to measure voluntary disclosure. The study developed a disclosure index based on the explanatory variables based on a multiple regression model. The study concludes that firms should lean towards disclosure of financial and social and board disclosure to increase their performance. The study conforms to the studies reviewed in terms of a positive relationship between financial disclosure and financial performance and a positive relationship between company size and financial performance. It can be concluded that over the years, corporate governance has been gaining awareness from the public and investors and there is a satisfactory level of voluntary disclosure practised by commercial banks in Kenya especially financial data disclosure and social and board disclosure. Therefore disclosure practises and requirements should apply across board no matter the size of the bank in order to provide as much information to all interested stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

About two-thirds of S&P500 firms disclose their analyst following on their corporate websites. Half of these firms disclose their analyst following in an unbiased fashion, while the rest manage this disclosure by selectively omitting analysts with pessimistic views (selective disclosers). Consistent with facing stronger incentives to manage expectations, coupled with weaker information environments and monitoring by external stakeholders, selective disclosers exhibit lower profitability, higher growth opportunities, stronger financing needs and a greater percentage of retail investor ownership. Moreover, selective disclosers experience lower future returns and exhibit higher income smoothing and lower accrual quality. Taken together, our evidence is consistent with some firms attempting to serve their strategic needs by selectively excluding from their websites analysts with less favourable views of their firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a broad sample of earnings announcement tweets (EATs) constructed from 18 million corporate tweets, we document that there exists a substitute relationship between EATs and management earnings forecasts (MEFs). EATs reduce the use and improve the accuracy of MEFs and analysts' forecast for contemporaneous and subsequent quarters. Such improvement is more pronounced in the presence of negative earnings news. Furthermore, firms with EATs are associated with higher profitability, better information environment, and lower liquidity. Using textual analysis, we show that firms with positive tone of EATs are more likely to have positive earnings surprise. Overall, our findings provide novel evidence on the significant association between corporate Twitter activities and managers' strategic disclosure as well as firms' information environment and future performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of Chinese stock market liberalization on the quality of firms' information disclosures. Although previous studies have explored the economic outcomes of stock market liberalization, little is known about its impact on the quality of management earnings forecasts. We treat China's Stock Connect program as a quasi‐experiment and draw data from Chinese A‐share‐listed companies from 2012 to 2017. Using a staggered difference‐in‐difference model, we find that eligible firms issue more accurate earnings forecasts after implementation of the Connect program compared with ineligible firms. Our mechanism analyses show that the positive effect is more pronounced for firms with initially opaque information environment and higher ex ante agency costs, suggesting that market liberalization facilitates higher‐opaque firms to issue more accurate earnings forecasts to meet the information demand from foreign investors, and facilitates monitoring in firms with weak internal governance, thereby improving earnings forecasts quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to assess if the voluntary reporting of adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), a widely used non-generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) measure, has effects on information asymmetry and value relevance and how the adjustments to GAAP earnings made to derive it contribute to these effects. This study focuses on firms from two countries with contrasting institutional settings, Canada and France. Design/methodology/approach: Relying on multivariate analyses and using Heckman's procedure to address the sample self-selection issue, this study first estimates the likelihood of a firm to report adjusted EBITDA. Then, this study examines if adjusted EBITDA, as well as the adjustments made to GAAP earnings to derive adjusted EBITDA (adjustments), affect a firm's information asymmetry and its value. These adjustments are essentially GAAP-grounded items that are discarded by management to derive non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA. The dependent variables are share price volatility, as a proxy for information asymmetry, alongside market-to-book and stock market return as indicators of value. Findings: In terms of the used sample, results suggest that Canadian firms are much more likely to report adjusted EBITDA than French firms. Chief executive officer (CEO) attributes (CEO power) appears to increase such likelihood. Moreover, for both Canadian and French firms, adjusted EBITDA is associated with reduced stock market volatility, an indication of lower information asymmetry, as well as higher market-to-book and returns, suggesting value relevance. The results also indicate that investors view the adjustments to GAAP earnings made by management to derive adjusted EBITDA as not value relevant (similar to noise). The GAAP-grounded elements that management discard to derive adjusted EBITDA actually increase information asymmetry. Originality/value: This study adds to prior research on the interface between a CEO attributes and governance and non-GAAP reporting. This study also provides evidence that, despite very different institutional settings, non-GAAP reporting conveys relevant information to capital markets' participants in both France and Canada. Hence, a country's institutional setting may have a differential impact on the disclosure choice but not on the resulting value relevance of such disclosure. Finally, this study extends the non-GAAP literature by examining the value relevance of a widely used yet under-researched measure, adjusted EBITDA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research finds mixed evidence that firms strategically manage their earnings announcement timing to either highlight or obscure financial information. While most prior studies focus on the specific timing and the nature of individual earnings announcements, we instead focus on the variability of firms' annual earnings announcement dates (hereafter referred to as EADs) over a span of time. Using archival data collected from I/B/E/S and Compustat, we find that firms with fewer resources, weaker internal monitoring systems, and greater financial uncertainty are much more likely to exhibit increased EAD variability. Furthermore, we provide substantial evidence that the capital market's response to earnings is noticeably weaker when a firm's EAD variability is higher. Additional in-depth analysis reveals that firms exhibiting higher EAD variability tend to report significantly lower future performance in both the short- and long-term horizons. Consequently, while managers might intentionally alter an earnings announcement date to exploit variations in investor attention, this comprehensive study provides significant evidence that they should also consider how the market perceives and interprets the overall EAD variability. This understanding is crucial to improve strategic financial communication and maintain investor trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Given the dominance of family ownership in India, this paper aims to examine whether the impact of board gender diversity (BGD) on voluntary disclosure (VD) is moderated by family ownership. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a panel data set of the top 100 listed Indian firms for five years, this study examines the impact of BGD on VD by segregating the sample between family-owned and nonfamily firms. For empirical analysis, we use appropriate panel data models. For robustness, we employ a three-stage least square (3SLS) model. Findings: The findings reveal the significant positive impact of BGD in terms of its different measures on VD for family and nonfamily firms. However, the impact becomes insignificant for nonfamily-owned firms when female directors are not substantially represented on the board. Originality/value: This study extends the ongoing debate about the outcomes of the mandatory gender quota on board by providing novel evidence on the difference between the impact of BGD on VD for family and nonfamily firms in the Indian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate performance is one of the core pillars of accelerating the economic growth of any economy. There are some direct and indirect components of corporate performance. This study is conducted to measure the impact of indirect factors, such as corporate voluntary disclosures, on corporate performance. A sample of 872 annual reports is investigated. A content analysis has been conducted to measure voluntary disclosure. The study employs the short panel data, fixed model regression, and Panel Corrected Standard Error (PCSE). The analysis indicates that corporate voluntary disclosure has influenced the return on assets with a regression coefficient of 0.0724 at p ≤ 0.01. Corporate voluntary disclosure in the transitional economy significantly influences corporate performance. However, the volume of corporate voluntary reporting in energy-related disclosure and climate-related disclosure is minimal, as the mean is only 2.21% and 2.31%. This implies that the government of the transitional economy may focus on persuading corporations to disclose additional information besides mandatory disclosure. In addition, indirect determinant of corporate performance, like corporate voluntary disclosure, brings sustainability to corporate performance, which further assists the transitional economy in shifting its economic status from one dimension to another. AcknowledgmentThe authors are very thankful to the Institute of Advanced Research, United International University, Bangladesh, for providing partial funds to complete this empirical study.This project is partially funded by the Institute for Advanced Research Publication Grant of United International University, Ref. No.: IAR-2024-Pub-069.

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 prohibits U.S. listed firms from bribing foreign government officials for business purposes. We examine whether less transparent firms are more likely to violate the FCPA by testing whether their voluntary disclosure of country-level information explains the violation. We hand-collect voluntarily disclosed geographic information for firms cited for FCPA violations and for a matched control group of nonviolators. We test whether less transparent disclosure of operations (sales and long-lived assets) abroad explains whether firms violate the FCPA. We find supporting evidence. Next, we compare the transparency of FCPA violators that self-reported their violations with the transparency of our control group, as well as the transparency of non-self-reporters to the transparency of our control group. Regulators sanction self-reporters with lower penalties than non-self-reporters. We find that the former are as transparent as the nonviolators. Yet, non-self-reporters are less transparent, suggesting that they drive our results. Overall, our results suggest that more transparent reporting of foreign operations is associated with FCPA compliance. Our study contributes to understanding whether voluntary disclosure signals FCPA compliance, following disclosure theory and instrumental stakeholder theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policies that require, or recommend, disclosure of corporate tax information are becoming more common throughout the world, as are examples of tax-related information increasingly influencing public policy and perceptions. In addition, companies are increasing the voluntary provision of tax-related information. We describe those trends and place them within a taxonomy of public and private tax disclosure. We then review the academic literature on corporate tax disclosures and discuss what is known about their effects. One key takeaway is the paucity of evidence that many tax disclosures mandated with the aim of increasing tax revenue have produced additional revenue. We highlight many crucial unanswered questions, answers to which would inform future tax legislation and financial accounting rule making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the impact of big data disclosure on audit quality in the Omani context. Design/methodology/approach: This study used data extracted from annual reports for a sample from financial companies listed on the Muscat Stock Exchange over the period from 2014 to 2020. We applied a content analysis approach to measure the level of big data disclosure in these firms. This study used ordinary least squares and panel data regression analysis to investigate the relationship between big data disclosure and audit quality. Moreover, we moderated the relationship between big data disclosure and audit quality with family members who are serving on the board of directors and with royal membership. Findings: The findings of the study indicated that big data disclosure played a vital role in enhancing the audit quality of the financial firms in the Omani context. In addition, family memberships positively moderated the association between big data disclosure and audit quality in these firms. However, royal members negatively moderated such relationship. Research limitations/implications: We included only financial institutions in the sample. Practical implications: The study offers practical implications for investors, managers, and policymakers. It will raise awareness on the importance of implementing regulations necessary for disclosing such information in annual reports, thereby enhancing the audit quality of firms and increasing the reliability and validity of financial reports. Originality/value: The study is considered the first, to the best of our knowledge, to examine the impact of big data disclosure on the audit quality in the Omani context. It contributes to the existing knowledge of digital transformation in the Omani financial firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether the use of Big Data analytics by firms has a spillover effect on management forecasting behavior. Insights provided by Big Data could potentially improve firms' ability to forecast earnings (supply channel) and investor demand for earnings information is likely higher for firms engaging in data analytics (demand channel). Using a text-based measure of firms' commitments to and usage of Big Data analytics, we find that Big Data analytics usage is positively associated with the propensity to issue management earnings forecasts. Consistent with the "supply channel" explanation, we find that Big Data analytics usage is positively associated with management forecast accuracy as well. Also, supporting the "demand channel" explanation, we find that Big Data analytics usage is associated with greater analyst following. Our findings of improved disclosure following commitments to Big Data analytics highlight a potentially unintended benefit of the Big Data revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customer referencing refers to the phenomenon of a firm intentionally revealing its customers so that the firm can obtain certification of the quality of its products. In this paper, we examine the association between customer referencing and firms' future product market performance. We find that firms that engage in customer referencing achieve better product market performance than those that do not, which is consistent with the notion that customer referencing, by certifying the referencing firm's product quality, enhances the firm's future product market performance. We also find that this positive association is stronger when the referenced customers are reputable and when the referencing firms have a greater need for certification. These results further affirm the certification role of customer referencing. Our study provides new insight into how certification via inter-organizational relationships can be an intangible marketing asset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We draw on (Merton, The Journal of Finance 42:483-510, 1987) to develop predictions for the benefits of voluntary disclosures by firms pursuing an initial public offering (IPO) prior to when they begin providing regulated financial information via their IPO prospectus. We find that voluntarily issuing press releases and attending investor and industry conferences are common disclosure activities prior to filing the IPO prospectus. Consistent with these disclosures enhancing investor awareness, we find positive associations with subsequent information acquisition by prospective investors and the financial press during the IPO filing period. These relations remain significant in tests exploiting the passage of the 2005 Securities Offering Reform as a source of variation in issuers' ability to provide disclosures designed to attract attention from prospective investors. Consistent with pre-prospectus disclosures enhancing the visibility of the firm, we find that, while direct associations between pre-prospectus voluntary disclosures and IPO pricing are limited, there are significant indirect effects operating through filing-period information acquisition by prospective investors and media coverage. We find no evidence that issuers' disclosure activities serve as hype, as the IPO price impact does not reverse post-offering. Overall our evidence is consistent with pre-prospectus voluntary disclosures benefiting issuers by enhancing awareness, which leads to improvements in firm valuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the theory of firm behavior, we explain the voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure behavior of firms from the perspective of trust repair and regard the process of firms' response to the CSR institution as an important way to trust repair for firms' management. We adopt an event history approach with a sample of Chinese firms listed on the A‐share market from 2008 to 2020 and find that faster engagement in CSR disclosure is one of the important trust repair methods for management when firms face performance gaps, and performance gaps positively incentivize firms to voluntarily engage in CSR disclosure. In addition, managers consider the total costs, risks, and benefits of different trust repair methods, there is a substitution effect between different trust repair methods, and the disclosure of internal audit reports and philanthropic donations negatively moderates the relationship between performance gap and CSR disclosure. Our study has important implications for understanding how firm performance affects CSR strategic decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Question/Issue: This study examines the relationship between boardroom gender diversity reforms (BGDRs) and corporate voluntary disclosure in the form of management earnings forecasts (MEFs) in a sample of 43 countries over the period 2000 to 2020. Research Findings/Insights: Taking advantage of the staggered adoption of the gender diversity reforms that aim to improve women's representation on boards, we find that firms exhibit a greater propensity for and frequency of issuing MEFs. These findings hold for both governance‐based and legislation‐based reforms but are stronger for the latter. Furthermore, we find stronger results (a) when female directors possess higher financial expertise and serve on board sub‐committees, (b) when board activity (meetings and attendance) improved following BGDRs, (c) for firms that had all‐male boards before the reforms and where gender diversity increased shortly after the reforms, and (d) for countries with greater legal enforcement and gender equality. Our findings are robust using the stacked difference‐in‐differences approach and alternative samples, models, and fixed effects. In addition, we find that, after the reforms, there is an increase in the forecast horizon, forecast width, bad news disclosure, accuracy, and the number of disaggregated forecast items. Theoretical/Academic Implications: Our study provides the first international and comprehensive evidence of the positive role of board gender reforms in the corporate information environment and offers vital policy implications. Practitioner/Policy Implications: Our study informs the ongoing debate regarding the effectiveness of and business case for gender diversity reforms. By documenting a causal link between BGDRs and voluntary disclosure, our study provides important implications for policymakers, regulators, investors, and top management teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non‐compliance with transparency obligations among publicly owned enterprises has revealed the lack of coercive capacity of the legislation. In this context, literature suggests that mandatory disclosure becomes a matter of company willingness, but this has not been empirically tested so far. Drawing on Oliver's (1991) typology of organizational strategies and studies on normativity production, this study analyzes whether voluntary disclosure levels of financial and non‐financial information determine compliance with transparency legal requirements for the case of Andalusian state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) owned by local and regional governments. We have verified this question using linear regression analysis. The analysis proves that when transparency legislation lacks enforcement power, the level of voluntary disclosure determines the level of legal compliance. Both voluntary and mandatory disclosure levels are explained by the same determinants, suggesting that disclosure is determined by reasons of legitimacy and commitment to transparency. This contributes to the research lines on normativity and transparency in SOEs, being also relevant for lawmakers. This study provides evidence for Oliver's (1991) theoretical arguments about firms' strategies in the face of institutional pressures. It offers policy‐makers and SOE managers an insight into how prepared SOEs are to respond to the demands for greater transparency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using daily‐level data on corporate social media activity, we show that investor attention generally increases when firms post on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube and that the effect is stronger during earnings announcement periods. We find that stock market liquidity improves when firms post on social media, but the effects are the most consistent for Twitter. Finally, we document that when firms miss earnings, they post more on social media if the magnitude of the bad news is small but remain silent when the magnitude is large. This strategic behaviour is prevalent across all three social media platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates whether the success of salary history bans could be limited by job-seekers volunteering their salaries unprompted. We survey American workers in 2019 and 2021 about their recent job searches, distinguishing when candidates were asked about salary history from when they were not. Historically well-paid workers may have an incentive to disclose, and employers who are aware of this could infer that nondisclosing workers are concealing low salaries. Through this mechanism, all workers could face pressure to avoid the stigma of silence. Our data shows a large percentage of workers (28%) volunteer salary history, even when a ban prevents employers from asking. An additional 47% will disclose if enough other job candidates disclose. Men are more likely than women to disclose their salaries unprompted, especially if they believe other candidates are disclosing. Over our 1.5-year sample covering jurisdictions with (and without) bans, unprompted volunteering of salary histories increased by about 6–8 percentage points. Funding: This work was supported by W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research; Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (Emerging Scholars Program). Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.17384. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When companies or organizations can evade audits on their harmful incidents, how should the affected entities design their audit and penalty policies? In "Audit and Remediation Strategies in the Presence of Evasion Capabilities" by Wang, de Véricourt, and Sun, the authors find random audits may be needed in the optimal policy. Specifically, the optimal policy alternates between ascending monetary penalties (without any audits) and random audits at a constant rate (when the penalty reach its maximum level). Only when the evasion is ineffective or the self-correction is too costly do deterministic audits become optimal. They tackle the problem in a continuous-time principal-agent framework with both adverse selection and moral hazard. In this paper, we explore how to uncover an adverse issue that may occur in organizations with the capability to evade detection. To that end, we formalize the problem of designing efficient auditing and remedial strategies as a dynamic mechanism design model. In this setup, a principal seeks to uncover and remedy an issue that occurs to an agent at a random point in time and that harms the principal if not addressed promptly. Only the agent observes the issue's occurrence, but the principal may uncover it by auditing the agent at a cost. The agent, however, can exert effort to reduce the audit's effectiveness in discovering the issue. We first establish that this setup reduces to the optimal stochastic control of a piecewise deterministic Markov process. The analysis of this process reveals that the principal should implement a dynamic cyclic auditing and remedial cost-sharing mechanism, which we characterize in closed form. Importantly, we find that the principal should randomly audit the agent unless the agent's evasion capacity is not very effective, and the agent cannot afford to self-correct the issue. In this latter case, the principal should follow predetermined audit schedules. Funding: This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) ["Audit Schedules in the Presence of Concealing Effort"; Grant 387250733]. Supplemental Material: The computer code and data that supports the findings of this study and the online appendix are available within this article's supplemental material at https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2022.0289. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: Regulators, investors, and boards of directors are increasingly demanding information about organizations' cybersecurity risk management. I examine the effect of the AICPA's voluntary cybersecurity examination service on investor perceptions and decisions. Similar to a previous AICPA IT-related assurance service called WebTrust that failed in the marketplace, cybersecurity examinations face competition from less comprehensive and less costly assurance services in a nonstandardized assurance market, and it is unclear whether investors will recognize the value provided by the more comprehensive assurance service. I find that investors are more willing to invest when management disclosures describe a cybersecurity examination compared with a less comprehensive assurance service but only if the assurance is in response to a cybersecurity incident. I also find that this effect is mediated by investor perceptions of assurance quality. I, however, do not find support for these same effects when the assurance is disclosed in the absence of an incident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Credit rating agencies play an important role in monitoring and disseminating information, and their ability to reduce information asymmetry means they have a unique role in creating value for debt and equity holders. The credit rating is an index that indicates the credit risk (default risk) of a company (debtor) or a specific debt (corporate bonds) and is a measure for determining the costs (interest rate) incurred when using other people's capital in the market; As an important indicator when issuing corporate bonds or borrowing funds, it affects the cash flow and value of the company. A credit rating is important to a company because of its impact on the valuation of stocks and bonds and the legal and contractual costs (benefits) associated with a change in credit rating. Therefore, managers are incentivized to maintain or achieve a favorable credit rating by influencing the rating agencies' perception of the firm's creditworthiness. The existing literature shows that the costs (benefits) associated with credit rating changes affect managerial capital structure decisions and firm financing choices, and firms tend to adjust leverage to influence rating agencies' decisions. However, leverage is not the only important consideration for rating agencies when determining a company's credit rating. On the other hand, the rating process requires analyzing publicly disclosed company information about a company's value. This study investigates how to use management and performance (managers' discretionary disclosure, managers' ability and accounting conservatism) to achieve a favorable credit rating. Method: The data of 90 companies admitted to the Iran Stock Exchange during the years 2013 to 2023 and a total of 990 annual financial statement reports, explanatory notes and reports of the board of directors' activities to the annual meeting of shareholders were used. Multiple regression methods have used hypotheses based on combined data. This checklist consists of 60 components for optional disclosure that each item in the checklist if it is disclosed in the annual financial statements, explanatory notes and the report of the general meeting; The number is considered to be one and otherwise zero, and finally, the optional disclosure index is calculated by dividing the sum of disclosed items by the total items that should be disclosed. Findings The results of the first hypothesis test showed that companies get higher ranks with the increase in managers' discretionary disclosure. It seems that companies tend to commit to the disclosure of credible information to influence the perception of rating agencies. A credible commitment to voluntary disclosure reduces the information asymmetry between inside and outside the firm, resulting in rating agencies' expectations of higher creditworthiness of the firm. Managers appear to use discretionary disclosure to obtain favorable ratings rationally. Conclusion: The increase in managers' voluntary disclosure may be due to opportunistic motives to obtain a favorable credit rating. An increase in conservatism will lead to a decrease in the manager's opportunistic behavior and a decrease in default risk. Therefore, companies with higher levels of conservatism and higher credit ratings are rewarded with lower debt costs. Rating agencies are likely to consider managers' ability as a signal of lower default risk, given the tendency of managers with higher ability to deliver more limited performance results in the future. By increasing managers' discretionary disclosure, companies get higher ratings. It seems that companies tend to commit to the disclosure of credible information to influence the perception of rating agencies. A credible commitment to voluntary disclosure reduces the information asymmetry between inside and outside the firm, resulting in rating agencies' expectations of higher creditworthiness of the firm. Managers appear to use discretionary disclosure to obtain favorable ratings rationally. Since a significant positive relationship exists between credit rating and discretionary disclosure, companies may have incentives for opportunistic disclosure to obtain a favorable credit rating. The results of this research are consistent with the results of Kim and An (2023) and He (2018). Since managers with high ability improve firm performance and information transparency, the idea that managers' ability positively affect credit rating is intuitive. However, it is unclear whether credit rating agencies can accurately measure managers' ability and consider it an independent risk factor because the assessment of managerial ability is subjective and difficult to separate from company performance. The results of the second hypothesis test show a positive and significant relationship between managers' ability and credit rating; companies with more capable managers are more likely to get a higher credit rating. This shows that credit rating agencies recognize managers' ability as an independent credit factor. Hence, rating agencies are likely to consider managers' ability as a signal of lower default risk, given the tendency of managers with higher ability to deliver more limited performance results in the future. Conservative reporting reduces information asymmetry between debt holders and managers, bondholder and shareholder conflicts, debt costs, and default probability. Therefore, it is considered an important accounting method that validates financial reporting. Therefore, managers can use conservative accounting to influence the credit rating analyst's perception of default risk. The results of the third hypothesis show that conservatism positively and significantly affects credit rating. This result shows that companies with higher conservatism get a higher credit rating. It seems that a company that practices more accounting conservatism reduces default risk by increasing cash holdings, and a company that increases accounting conservatism reduces default risk and agency conflict by increasing efficient investments. Hence, credit markets react to corporate reporting strategies and issue higher credit ratings to companies with lower default risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of this study is to analyse the factors that contribute to the disclosure of relational liabilities (RLs) of the US companies. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses content analysis to examine the disclosure of RLs in annual reports of the US companies listed on the Nasdaq-100 index from 2013 to 2015. Findings: The study finds a positive correlation between the disclosure of RLs and gender diversity of the board of directors as well as the education level of the CEO. By contrast, the disclosure of RLs is negatively associated with the age of the CEO. Companies in knowledge-intensive industries also tend to disclose more information about their RLs than those in other industries. Originality/value: This study focuses on the determinants of RLs, whereas previous research has mainly examined the positive impact of voluntary disclosure of intellectual capital on financial performance. The main objective of this study is to shed light on the factors that influence the disclosure of RLs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to gain knowledge regarding the impact of positive or negative framing on decision-making according to gender, whether feminine or masculine, in voluntary disclosure. I was using an experimental study with a two-by-two factorial design. One of the factors is framing which is divided into 2 levels, namely positive framing and negative framing. This research hypothesis uses Two Ways Anova. This research shows that positive and negative framing has no effect on tax decisions regarding voluntary disclosure. Apart from that, masculine and feminine gender does not affect tax compliance for voluntary disclosure.

We investigate voluntary disclosure strategies in contested takeovers and the associated economic consequences. Using a difference-in-differences research design and propensity score matching, we find that, relative to friendly takeovers, target management in contested takeovers provides more earnings guidance and conveys more good news during the takeover. Moreover, voluntary disclosure helps contested targets negotiate a better offer, and the results are stronger for targets with more information asymmetry. Collectively, targets adopt voluntary disclosure and alter their strategies under the threat of contested takeover to enhance their bargaining power. Voluntary disclosure by contested targets serves as a negotiation tactic that potentially benefits target shareholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]