ABSTRACT

Research on value relevance of reported selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A) generally employs historical SG&A as reference point for assessment. This practice tends to ignore the interpretational ambiguity that surrounds the economics of SG&A expenditure and what it means for future profitability and firm value. Organizational theories stress the importance of peer-based benchmarking as an aid for assessment, especially when assessment uncertainty is high, and argue that similarity to peers holds information by lending sensibility, appropriateness and technical value to observed behaviour, thereby reducing assessment uncertainty. Using a sample of listed US firms, we investigate whether SG&A similarity to an industry-specific peer-based benchmark conveys value-relevant information, reducing information asymmetry between firms and investors. We find that only for firms with SG&A exceeding the peer-based benchmark in the previous period, SG&A similarity is associated with higher future financial performance and reduces information asymmetry between firms and investors. We also find that both contemporaneous stock returns and future firm value impound this uncertainty-reducing information conveyed by SG&A similarity. Results further show that the value-relevance of SG&A similarity mainly holds for firms with a Defender-type business strategy and firms from peer groups where business strategies are more similar.

摘要

对报告的销售、一般和管理费用 (SG&A) 的价值相关性的研究通常采用历史 SG&A 作为评估参考点。这种做法往往会忽视围绕 SG&A 支出经济学及其对未来盈利能力和公司价值的意义的解释模糊性。组织理论强调基于同伴的基准作为评估辅助工具的重要性，尤其是在评估不确定性很高时，并认为与同伴的相似性通过为观察到的行为赋予敏感性、适当性和技术价值来保存信息，从而降低评估的不确定性。使用美国上市公司的样本，我们调查 SG&A 与特定行业的同行基准的相似性是否传达了与价值相关的信息，减少企业和投资者之间的信息不对称。我们发现仅对于上一期 SG&A 超过同行基准的公司，SG&A 相似性与更高的未来财务业绩相关，并减少了公司与投资者之间的信息不对称。我们还发现，同期的股票回报和未来的公司价值都影响了这种由 SG&A 相似性传达的降低不确定性的信息。结果进一步表明，SG&A 相似性的价值相关性主要适用于具有防御型商业战略的公司和来自商业战略更相似的同行群体的公司。