Profit-fueled corporate cynicism

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Barcellos, Leonardo P.; Emett, Scott A.
• 署名单位: Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING & ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0165-4101; 1879-1980
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2026.101896
• 发表日期: 2026-08
• 页码: 101896
• 关键词: Corporate cynicism; Views of profit; Stock market participation; financial well-being; SELF-INTEREST BIAS; financial incentives; social-interaction; MARKET; trust; disclosure; beliefs; PARTICIPATION; PERSPECTIVES; individuals

摘要

A large literature documents that many households underinvest in equities, but the beliefs underlying this behavior remain poorly understood. We study Americans' cynicism toward public companies as a belief structure that helps explain limited market participation, examining its prevalence, underlying mechanisms, and strategies to attenuate it. In a nationally representative survey, we find that corporate cynicism is widespread and negatively predicts individuals' propensity to invest in stocks. Building on these findings, we conduct a series of experiments and provide causal evidence that corporate cynicism reduces stock investments. We further show that perceiving companies as profit-maximizing fuels corporate cynicism, and that cynicism can be reduced by reshaping beliefs about profit maximization or profit itself. Specifically, cynicism declines when companies highlight broader stakeholder responsibilities in narrative disclosures, when people are prompted to take an investor perspective, and when financial media focus on how corporate profits benefit most Americans versus deepen inequality.