Understanding the Influences of Financial Reporting, Corporate Disclosures and Financial Media on the Corporate Financial Information Environment

了解财务报告、公司披露和财经媒体对企业财务信息环境的影响

基本信息

批准号：
ES/J012394/1
负责人：
Martin Walker
金额：
$ 35.89万
依托单位：
University of Manchester
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2012
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2012 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FJ012394%2F1
关键词：
Understanding Influences Financial Reporting Corporate

项目摘要

The UK financial sector is a major driver of economic activity and transparent and effective financial communication is a key determinant of its success. Audited financial statements, unaudited corporate disclosures, and information signalled through corporate financial choices are the primary ways that firms communicate with capital market participants. These mechanisms, together with information from analysts, financial journalists, rating agencies and other market commentators external to the firm combine to form the Corporate Financial Information Environment (CFIE). Narrative disclosures represent a large part of firms' overall financial communications with investors. Textual commentaries help to clarify issues obscured by complex accounting methods and footnote disclosures. In addition, narratives summarise corporate strategy, contextualize results, explain governance arrangements, describe corporate social responsibility policy, and provide forward looking information for investors. We will study the causes and consequences of corporate disclosure and financial reporting outcomes. The determinants of financial reporting quality and the factors that influence the quality of information disclosed to investors beyond the financial statements are the main focal points of the proposed project. While a considerable body of research exists on financial narratives, it has been limited by the methods used for measuring the characteristics of such disclosures. In particular, the need to hand-collect relevant data from firms' annual reports and the subjectivity of textual scoring methods have restricted progress. Recent advances in computing and linguistics provide a basis for undertaking more sophisticated analyses. This project brings together a multidisciplinary team with the aim of developing statistical and computer-based techniques for measuring the properties of UK corporate disclosures. In particular, we will develop new ways of measuring the quality and tone of company narratives using computer-based rankings of annual reports. Both the rankings and linguistic techniques on which these rankings are based will be made available to those seeking information on corporate disclosure policy or wishing to undertake their own analysis of specific narrative statements. We will also use the findings from our analysis as the basis for studying how managers communicate expectations of firm performance to investors and they seek to manipulate investors' impressions of reported results. The project will also study how the CFIE is shaped by the actions of the financial media. Despite voluminous amounts of press commentary and published investment advice, the informativeness of financial media outputs and their impact on management behaviour have not been studied systematically. We aim to develop methods for measuring the content and informativeness of press commentaries, and then use these measures to examine how the financial media interacts with corporate reporting to determine the quality of the CFIE. The majority of our analysis will be based on large samples of UK firms listed on the London Stock Exchange. We will use complex statistical modelling procedures to explore relations between key variables and to test our predictions. Our statistical tests will be supported by interviews with key stakeholder groups to help us better understand current financial communication issues and practices. Insights from these interviews will be used to refine our research questions and interpret our results. The project is expected to yield important insights for business policy makers, accounting standard setting bodies and financial market information regulators. We also expect equity market participants including investors, investment analysts, finance directors, auditors, and firm officials to benefit from the research.

英国金融部门是经济活动的主要驱动力，透明有效的金融交流是其成功的关键决定因素。经过审核的财务报表，未经审计的公司披露以及通过公司财务选择发出的信息是公司与资本市场参与者沟通的主要方式。这些机制以及分析师，金融记者，评级机构和其他市场评论员的信息结合在一起，形成了公司财务信息环境（CFIE）。叙事披露代表了公司与投资者的整体财务通信的很大一部分。文本评论有助于阐明复杂的会计方法和脚注披露所掩盖的问题。此外，叙述总结了公司战略，将结果归类，解释治理安排，描述企业社会责任政策并为投资者提供前瞻性信息。我们将研究公司披露和财务报告结果的原因和后果。财务报告质量的决定因素以及影响财务报表以外投资者披露的信息质量的因素是拟议项目的主要焦点。尽管关于财务叙事的研究存在相当大的研究，但它受到用于衡量此类披露特征的方法的限制。特别是，需要从公司年度报告中手工收集相关数据以及文本评分方法的主观性有限。计算和语言学的最新进展为进行更复杂的分析提供了基础。该项目汇集了一个多学科团队，目的是开发统计和基于计算机的技术来衡量英国公司披露的性质。特别是，我们将使用基于计算机的年度报告排名来开发新的方法来衡量公司叙事的质量和音调。这些排名所基于的排名和语言技术都将提供给那些寻求有关公司披露政策信息或希望对特定叙事陈述进行自己的分析的人。我们还将利用分析中的发现作为研究管理人员如何向投资者传达对公司绩效期望的基础，并试图操纵投资者对报告结果的印象。该项目还将研究财务媒体的行动如何塑造CFIE。尽管有大量的新闻评论和已发表的投资建议，但尚未系统地研究财务媒体产出及其对管理行为的影响的信息。我们旨在开发衡量新闻评论的内容和信息性的方法，然后使用这些措施来研究金融媒体如何与公司报告相互作用以确定CFIE的质量。我们的大多数分析将基于伦敦证券交易所上市的英国公司的大量样本。我们将使用复杂的统计建模程序来探索关键变量之间的关系并测试我们的预测。我们的统计测试将得到与主要利益相关者群体的访谈，以帮助我们更好地了解当前的财务交流问题和实践。这些访谈的见解将用于完善我们的研究问题并解释我们的结果。预计该项目将为业务政策制定者，会计标准设置机构和金融市场信息监管机构提供重要见解。我们还希望股票市场参与者在内，包括投资者，投资分析师，财务总监，审计师和公司官员，将从研究中受益。