To read or to listen? Does disclosure delivery mode impact investors' reactions to managers' tone language?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Elliott, W. Brooke; Loftus, Serena; Winn, Amanda
• 署名单位: University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; University System of Ohio; Kent State University; Kent State University Salem; Kent State University Kent; University of Kansas
• 刊物名称: CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0823-9150
• DOI: 10.1111/1911-3846.12898
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 7-38
• 关键词: EARNINGS ANNOUNCEMENT DRIFT; CONFERENCE CALLS; information-content; Textual analysis; analysts; media; COMMUNICATION; persuasion; richness; MARKETS

摘要

We examine how disclosure delivery mode-oral versus written-influences investors' reactions to managers' tone language. We hypothesize that listening to disclosures, relative to reading them, causes managers' qualitative word choices to have a greater impact on investors' judgments. We theorize that this effect occurs because oral delivery mode promotes heuristic processing and qualitative tone language is an easy-to-process disclosure element. The results from an experiment in a conference call setting are consistent with our hypothesis and suggest a boundary condition. Specifically, the interaction of mode and tone language is significant in a setting where heuristic processing is likely (good earnings news) but not in a setting where investors are likely to scrutinize the disclosure (bad earnings news). Our results inform investors about the potential consequences of how they consume disclosures. Specifically, we show that investors are more susceptible to managers' tone language when listening to disclosures containing good news than when reading them.