IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finana/v65y2019ics1057521918302308.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Discretionary tone, annual earnings and market returns: Evidence from UK Interim Management Statements

Author

Listed:
  • Rahman, Sheehan

Abstract

This study contributes to the tone management literature by examining the discretionary tone of Interim Management Statements (IMSs) in the context of UK quarterly reporting. Specifically, it provides evidence that the discretionary tone of third-quarter IMSs, but not first-quarter IMSs, is positively aligned with annual earnings. Further analysis reveals a negative association between third-quarter discretionary negative tone and annual earnings. The discretionary tone is also more positively aligned with contemporaneous abnormal market returns in the third quarter than in the first quarter. Additional analysis provides new insights on the efficacy of the IMS discretionary positive tone during the 2008 financial crisis, and on the policy debate of the IMS as an alternative to the full quarterly report.

Suggested Citation

  • Rahman, Sheehan, 2019. "Discretionary tone, annual earnings and market returns: Evidence from UK Interim Management Statements," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finana:v:65:y:2019:i:c:s1057521918302308
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2019.101384
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521918302308
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.irfa.2019.101384?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Schleicher & Martin Walker, 2010. "Bias in the tone of forward‐looking narratives," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(4), pages 371-390.
    2. Dechow, Patricia & Ge, Weili & Schrand, Catherine, 2010. "Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 344-401, December.
    3. Angela K. Davis & Jeremy M. Piger & Lisa M. Sedor, 2012. "Beyond the Numbers: Measuring the Information Content of Earnings Press Release Language," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(3), pages 845-868, September.
    4. Verrecchia, Robert E., 2001. "Essays on disclosure," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-3), pages 97-180, December.
    5. Doris M. Merkl-Davies & Niamh Brennan, 2007. "Discretionary disclosure strategies in corporate narratives : incremental information or impression management?," Open Access publications 10197/2907, Research Repository, University College Dublin.
    6. Paul C. Tetlock & Maytal Saar‐Tsechansky & Sofus Macskassy, 2008. "More Than Words: Quantifying Language to Measure Firms' Fundamentals," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1437-1467, June.
    7. Beattie, Vivien, 2014. "Accounting narratives and the narrative turn in accounting research: Issues, theory, methodology, methods and a research framework," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 111-134.
    8. Thomas Schleicher & Martin Walker, 2015. "Are interim management statements redundant?," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(2), pages 229-255, February.
    9. Mark Clatworthy & Michael Jones, 2003. "Financial reporting of good news and bad news: evidence from accounting narratives," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(3), pages 171-185.
    10. Feng Li, 2010. "The Information Content of Forward‐Looking Statements in Corporate Filings—A Naïve Bayesian Machine Learning Approach," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(5), pages 1049-1102, December.
    11. Vuong, Quang H, 1989. "Likelihood Ratio Tests for Model Selection and Non-nested Hypotheses," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 307-333, March.
    12. Pelham Gore & Peter Pope & Ashni Singh, 2007. "Earnings management and the distribution of earnings relative to targets: UK evidence," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 123-149.
    13. Hoskin, Re & Hughes, Js & Ricks, We, 1986. "Evidence On The Incremental Information-Content Of Additional Firm Disclosures Made Concurrently With Earnings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24, pages 1-32.
    14. Francis, J & Philbrick, D & Schipper, K, 1994. "Shareholder Litigation And Corporate Disclosures," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 137-164.
    15. Paul Hribar & Daniel W. Collins, 2002. "Errors in Estimating Accruals: Implications for Empirical Research," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 105-134, March.
    16. Somnath Das & Pervin K. Shroff & Haiwen Zhang, 2009. "Quarterly Earnings Patterns and Earnings Management," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(3), pages 797-831, September.
    17. Teoh, Siew Hong & Welch, Ivo & Wong, T. J., 1998. "Earnings management and the underperformance of seasoned equity offerings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 63-99, October.
    18. Tim Loughran & Bill Mcdonald, 2011. "When Is a Liability Not a Liability? Textual Analysis, Dictionaries, and 10‐Ks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(1), pages 35-65, February.
    19. Healy, Paul M., 1985. "The effect of bonus schemes on accounting decisions," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1-3), pages 85-107, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hesham Bassyouny & Tarek Abdelfattah, 2022. "Executives vs. governance: Who has the predictive power? Evidence from narrative tone," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 361-382, January.
    2. Bassyouny, Hesham & Abdelfattah, Tarek & Tao, Lei, 2020. "Beyond narrative disclosure tone: The upper echelons theory perspective," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    3. Lonwabo Mlawu & Frank Ranganai Matenda & Mabutho Sibanda, 2023. "Linking Financial Performance with CEO Statements: Testing Impression Management Theory," Risks, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-16, March.
    4. Bassyouny, Hesham & Abdelfattah, Tarek & Tao, Lei, 2022. "Narrative disclosure tone: A review and areas for future research," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    5. Rahman, Sheehan, 2023. "Narrative tone and earnings persistence," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rahman, Sheehan, 2023. "Narrative tone and earnings persistence," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    2. Ingrid E. Fisher & Margaret R. Garnsey & Mark E. Hughes, 2016. "Natural Language Processing in Accounting, Auditing and Finance: A Synthesis of the Literature with a Roadmap for Future Research," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(3), pages 157-214, July.
    3. Yekini, Liafisu Sina & Wisniewski, Tomasz Piotr & Millo, Yuval, 2016. "Market reaction to the positiveness of annual report narratives," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 415-430.
    4. Bassyouny, Hesham & Abdelfattah, Tarek & Tao, Lei, 2022. "Narrative disclosure tone: A review and areas for future research," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    5. Beattie, Vivien, 2014. "Accounting narratives and the narrative turn in accounting research: Issues, theory, methodology, methods and a research framework," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 111-134.
    6. Yan Luo & Linying Zhou, 2020. "Textual tone in corporate financial disclosures: a survey of the literature," International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 17(2), pages 101-110, September.
    7. Elizabeth Gordon & Elaine Henry & Marietta Peytcheva & Lili Sun, 2013. "Discretionary disclosure and the market reaction to restatements," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 75-110, July.
    8. Berkin, Anil & Aerts, Walter & Van Caneghem, Tom, 2023. "Feasibility analysis of machine learning for performance-related attributional statements," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    9. Wanli Li & Tiantian Yan & Yue Li & Ziqiao Yan, 2023. "Earnings management and CSR report tone: Evidence from China," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(4), pages 1883-1902, July.
    10. Frankel, Richard & Jennings, Jared & Lee, Joshua, 2016. "Using unstructured and qualitative disclosures to explain accruals," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 209-227.
    11. Gilberto Marquez-Illescas & Allan A. Zebedee & Linying Zhou, 2019. "Hear Me Write: Does CEO Narcissism Affect Disclosure?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 401-417, October.
    12. Christian Leuz & Peter D. Wysocki, 2016. "The Economics of Disclosure and Financial Reporting Regulation: Evidence and Suggestions for Future Research," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 525-622, May.
    13. Javid Iqbal & Khalid Riaz, 2022. "Predicting future financial performance of banks from management’s tone in the textual disclosures," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 2691-2721, August.
    14. Mather, Paul & Ranasinghe, Dinithi & Unda, Luisa A., 2021. "Are gender diverse boards more cautious? The impact of board gender diversity on sentiment in earnings press releases," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3).
    15. Ali Ataullah & Andrew Vivian & Bin Xu, 2018. "Optimistic Disclosure Tone and Conservative Debt Policy," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 54(4), pages 445-484, December.
    16. Kelvin K. F. Law & Lillian F. Mills, 2015. "Taxes and Financial Constraints: Evidence from Linguistic Cues," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 777-819, September.
    17. Gehan A. Mousa & Elsayed A. H. Elamir & Khaled Hussainey, 2022. "Using machine learning methods to predict financial performance: Does disclosure tone matter?," International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(1), pages 93-112, March.
    18. Kris Boudt & James Thewissen, 2019. "Jockeying for Position in CEO Letters: Impression Management and Sentiment Analytics," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 48(1), pages 77-115, March.
    19. Bassyouny, Hesham & Abdelfattah, Tarek & Tao, Lei, 2020. "Beyond narrative disclosure tone: The upper echelons theory perspective," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    20. Liu, Pu & Nguyen, Hazel T., 2020. "CEO characteristics and tone at the top inconsistency," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finana:v:65:y:2019:i:c:s1057521918302308. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620166 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.