The study uses a novel psychological text-mining approach, language style matching (LSM), to examine the effect of the social interaction of top management team (TMT) members on conservative accounting reporting practices. We posit that similar language styles help to form consensus and social integration, leading to better cooperation in group decision-making. Using 10,531 firm-year observations, we show that there is a positive association between TMT LSM and accounting conservatism, suggesting that TMT members who share similar linguistic styles respond quickly to corporate news on firm value. This implies that TMTs with better language style alignment facilitate social interactions among members to form a consensus view, enhancing decision making on how a firm should react to various corporate events that affect its value. Additional analyses indicate that the impact of LSM on conservative accounting reporting behavior is more pronounced when firms face a more competitive business environment, severe information asymmetry, and higher financial distress. By examining TMT characteristics from the dynamic psycholinguistic perspective, we shed light on the understanding of how executives' cognitive values collectively affect a firm's conservative reporting decisions.

该研究使用一种新颖的心理文本挖掘方法，即语言风格匹配（LSM），以检查高层管理团队（TMT）成员的社交互动对保守会计报告做法的影响。我们认为相似的语言风格有助于形成共识和社会融合，从而在团体决策中促进更好的合作。使用10,531个公司年度的观察结果，我们表明TMT LSM与会计保守主义之间存在正相关关系，这表明具有相似语言风格的TMT成员对公司价值的公司新闻做出了快速响应。这意味着具有更好的语言风格一致性的TMT可以促进成员之间的社交互动以形成共识，从而增强了关于公司应如何应对影响其价值的各种公司事件的决策。其他分析表明，当公司面临更具竞争性的商业环境，严重的信息不对称和更高的财务困境时，LSM对保守会计报告行为的影响更为明显。通过从动态心理语言学的角度研究TMT特征，我们对高管的认知价值如何​​集体影响公司的保守报告决策的理解有所了解。