Disclosure Spontaneity and Managers’ Explanations for Performance

• In Event: Disclosure and Information Intermediaries

Abstract

Given managers’ various responsibilities, they must decide how much to prepare for disclosures and recent research documents substantial variation in the amount of managers’ disclosure preparation. However, little is known about how differing levels of preparation affect disclosure characteristics. With less preparation, managers’ disclosures are more spontaneous. Using experimental and survey evidence, we investigate how managers’ disclosures differ when issued following less preparation. Our experiment uses a 2x2 between-subjects design where we (1) manipulate cognitive load and (2) essentially randomize participant performance to be either good or poor. Our participants act as managers and report the reasons for their performance on an abstract task. We find that managers provide more internal reasons for performance when responding more spontaneously. We follow up with a survey of IROs in order to document reasons and consequences for different amounts of disclosure preparation. Our results shed light on how and why managers invest in different levels of disclosure preparation, and also provide evidence on how managers’ disclosures differ when issued more or less spontaneously.

Authors

• Michael Thomas Durney, FASB/University of Iowa

• Kristina Rennekamp, Cornell University