Overcoming Deceptive Evasions in Earnings Calls: The Role of Investor Suspicion

Evasive responses enable managers to escape difficult questions in earnings calls without lying. Although such tactics are common in corporate communication and other important settings, we still know little about how investors and other listeners can avoid being misled by them. Drawing on theories from multiple disciplines, I predict that a common type of nonanswer leads to equivocal interpretations, whereas artful dodges escape detection in earnings calls. However, when investors adopt a suspicious state of mind—characterized by suspended judgment, balanced information search, and consideration of plausible rival possibilities—they are better able to distinguish potentially deceptive evasive tactics from proper responses. My experimental results support these predictions, showing that suspicious thinking allows investors to overcome nonanswers and dodges without punishing adequate responses. I also provide evidence that nonanswers and dodges are unique evasive strategies and that simple interventions aligned with the context of earnings calls can prompt suspicion. These findings contribute to research on the informational role of earnings calls and offer new insights into how suspicion influences deception judgments and into previous research on evasive responses in earnings calls.