Hello, is anybody there? Corporate accessibility for outside shareholders as a signal of agency problems

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Firth, Michael; Lin, Chen; Wong, Sonia Man-lai; Zhao, Xiaofeng
• 署名单位: University of Hong Kong; Lingnan University
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ACCOUNTING STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1380-6653
• DOI: 10.1007/s11142-019-09501-3
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 1317-1358
• 关键词: earnings management; nonfinancial disclosure; investor relations; Emerging markets; capital-markets; governance; FIRMS; OWNERSHIP; CHINA; INFORMATION

摘要

In this paper, we develop a corporate accessibility measure for publicly listed firms in China based on their responses to outside market participants' attempts to communicate with them (via telephone, e-mail, and online discussion forum), and examine whether the provision of corporate accessibility signals the incidence of agency problems. We find robust evidence that non-accessible firms are associated with more agency problems, manifested in greater tunneling of corporate resources through inter-corporate loans and related-party transactions, greater consumption of managerial slack, more earnings management, and a higher probability of committing corporate fraud. We also find that non-accessible firms are more likely to conduct value-destroying acquisitions than accessible firms. Furthermore, we find that non-accessible firms underperform accessible firms in both firm valuation and operating performance. Overall, our results suggest that a firm's decision to provide corporate accessibility is a value-relevant signal for informing investors of the severity of agency problems in publicly listed firms.