On the Realities of Investor-Manager Interactivity: Baudrillard, Hyperreality, and Management Q&A Sessions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bamber, Matthew; Abraham, Santhosh
• 署名单位: York University - Canada
• 刊物名称: CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0823-9150
• DOI: 10.1111/1911-3846.12539
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 1290-1325
• 关键词: CONFERENCE CALLS; empirical-analysis; analysts; RISK; PRESENTATIONS; CONSTRUCTION; DISCLOSURES; KNOWLEDGE; insights; rituals

摘要

This paper draws on extensive fieldwork to explore the nature, scope, and implications of management preparations for the question and answer session (Q&A) that occurs during a firm's results presentation. Prior literature has associated the value of this encounter with investor-manager interactivity. As such, it is assumed that there are high levels of managerial authorship, ownership, and spontaneity as executives face questions from analysts. Following on, it is generally assumed that this translates into an increased risk of unintended disclosure, through verbal and nonverbal messaging. However, our data indicate that management engages in vast preparatory work to mitigate the risks associated withreal(original, natural, spontaneous, un-staged) interactivity. Instead, the Q&A is carefully planned, organized, scripted, and rehearsed. As such, the event is transformed into ahyperrealencounter in the Baudrillardian sense. Despite this, the value of the Q&A is not necessarily impaired. Instead, these managerial backstage preparations arguably make the encounterrealer than real.We suggest that the Q&A that we observe (the copy) is more useful than the original might have been. Our work provides evidence and discussion of two interconnected paradoxes: perfection and self-reference. This study not only raises important questions, challenges, and opportunities for researchers interested in the study of investor-manager interactions but also speaks to those with an interest in workplace meetings and Q&A more broadly.