The impact of stakeholder management on restatement disclosure transparency

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of a particular firm’s stakeholder orientation, particularly employee orientation, on corporate communications with stakeholders concerning financial irregularities. Design/methodology/approach - This study explores the impact of a particular firm’s stakeholder orientation, particularly employee orientation, on corporate communications with stakeholders concerning financial irregularities. Using a sample of 762 firm restatements, the authors separate their observations by disclosure transparency (high or low transparency of disclosure) and use logit regressions to examine whether companies with stronger employee orientation make more or less transparent restatement disclosures. Findings - The findings show that higher levels of investment in employee orientation are associated with less transparent restatement disclosures. Further, examining a subsample of restatements in which managers may have greater discretion over how a restatement is disclosed confirms this finding. However, supplemental tests show that increased external monitoring may mitigate these effects. Practical implications - The findings provide support that other stakeholders, such as shareholders, should weigh the potential pros/cons of management investments in corporate social responsibility (CSR). These concerns are more important now as firms continue to embrace a stakeholder-focused model of management which allocates resources to numerous stakeholder groups. Originality/value - This paper extends the growing body of research that assesses the impact of CSR on firm outcomes (Kimet al., 2012; Guoet al., 2016; Hmaittaneet al., 2019). Further, this paper contributes to the disclosure transparency literature by finding an association between CSR investment levels and the manner in which a firm discloses a restatement.