Purpose

Prior research shows that managers with lower ability release less accurate management earnings forecasts and have more earnings restatements, lower earnings persistence and lower quality accruals estimations. Yet, whether the impact of managerial ability (MA) on financial reporting can be extended to the narrative section of firms' financial disclosures needs to be theoretically and empirically examined. The authors theorize in this paper that managers with low ability opportunistically inflate the tone to increase outsiders' perceptions of their ability. The authors also examine the relation between MA and the informativeness of tone to predict future firm performance and explain investors' reaction at earnings announcement.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors collect 24,000 earnings press releases of 1,149 distinct firms between 2004 and 2013. Content analysis is used to proxy the tone of the disclosures. The authors use the score developed by Demerjian et al. (2012) to measure MA. The authors then employ panel data regressions to examine the impact of MA on disclosure tone.

Findings

The authors find that low-ability managers inflate the disclosure tone to positively influence labor market's perceptions about their ability. This effect is magnified for younger and shorter-tenured managers, for firms with more intense monitoring and during bear markets. The authors also find that the tone of earnings press releases of low-ability managers results in a lower stock price reaction. Supplementary analyses show that the results do not only hold for the tone, but also can be extended to other linguistic features such as the numerical intensity and the readability of earnings press releases. The results are robust to alternative library specifications and other corporate disclosures such as CEO letters to shareholders or 10-K filings.

Research limitations/implications

The paper shows that managers worry about how firm performance influences the labor market assessment of their ability. In particular, the authors find that managers of low ability are willing to opportunistically manipulate the content of corporate disclosures to improve this perception and build their reputation.

Originality/value

The authors contribute by providing theoretical and empirical evidence on how managers attempt to steer assessments of their ability by manipulating corporate disclosures. Consistent with prior business research suggesting that one's ability is a key feature that affects managers' propensity to engage in ethical practices, such as tax avoidance or manipulation of financial information, this study shows that less able managers tend to inflate the tone of the earnings announcements and that this ability-driven bias is likely to be magnified by career concerns.

中文翻译：

---

管理能力会影响披露吗？来自收益新闻稿的证据

目的

先前的研究表明，能力较低的经理会发布不太准确的管理盈余预测，并且会有更多的盈余重述，较低的盈余持久性和较低的质量应计估计。但是，管理能力（MA）对财务报告的影响是否可以扩展到公司财务披露的叙述部分，需要从理论和经验上进行检验。作者在本文中认为，能力低下的经理人会适度地夸大语气，以增加局外人对其能力的认识。作者还研究了MA和语气信息之间的关系，以预测未来的公司业绩并在收益公告时解释投资者的反应。

设计/方法/方法

作者收集了2004年至2013年间1,149家不同公司的24,000份盈余新闻稿。使用内容分析替代了披露的基调。作者使用Demerjian等人开发的分数。（2012年）来衡量MA。然后，作者采用面板数据回归来检验MA对披露基调的影响。

发现

作者发现，低能力的经理会夸大信息披露的语气，从而对劳动力市场对其能力的看法产生积极影响。对于年轻，任期较短的经理，在监督方面更严格的公司以及在熊市期间，这种影响会被放大。作者还发现，低能力经理人的收益新闻稿的基调会导致较低的股价反应。补充分析表明，结果不仅适用于语气，还可以扩展到其他语言功能，例如数字强度和收益新闻稿的可读性。结果对于替代图书馆规范和其他公司披露（例如首席执行官致股东的信或10-K档案）的结果是可靠的。

研究局限/意义

本文表明，管理者担心公司绩效如何影响劳动力市场对其能力的评估。特别是，作者发现，能力低下的管理者愿意机会主义地操纵公司披露的内容，以改善这种认识并建立自己的声誉。

创意/价值

作者通过提供有关经理如何通过操纵公司披露来引导其能力评估的理论和经验证据做出贡献。与先前的商业研究一致认为，能力是影响经理人从事道德行为（如避税或操纵财务信息）的倾向的关键特征，该研究表明，能力较弱的经理人倾向于夸大收益公告的基调。而且这种能力驱动的偏见很可能会因职业问题而加剧。