Are Online Job Postings Informative to Investors?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gutierrez, Elizabeth; Lourie, Ben; Nekrasov, Alexander; Shevlin, Terry
• 署名单位: Universidad de Chile; University of California System; University of California Irvine; University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Chicago; University of Illinois Chicago Hospital
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2019.3450
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 3133-3141
• 关键词: Human capital; hiring; disclosure; job postings; Market reaction; firm performance

摘要

Human capital is a key factor in value creation in the modern corporation. Yet the disclosure of investment in human capital is scant. We propose that a company's online job postings are disclosures made outside of the investor-relations channel that contain forward-looking information that could be informative to investors about future growth. We find that changes in the number of job postings are positively associated with changes in future performance and that this relation is stronger when postings likely represent growth rather than replacement. Consistent with job postings providing new information to the market, investors react positively to changes in the number of job postings. The market reaction to postings is stronger when firms are likely to be hiring for growth rather than replacement and for firms with low labor intensity (and therefore high marginal productivity of labor).