This paper examines whether a firm's degree of conservatism in financial reporting is associated with its voluntary non-financial corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures and the stock price reaction to such disclosures. Theoretical and empirical studies find that the amount of...

Given the fact that there are no clear regulations guiding firms to publicly disclose CSR performance in practice, it is possible that management strategically uses discretion to emphasize (obfuscate) favorable (unfavorable) information in public disclosures, wishing to “manipulate”...

This study aimed to determine if the level of information included in audit reports was related to the average stock value of companies as listed in the Brazilian capital market. Of 255 companies, 44 financial entities were excluded because they operate in regulatory and competitive environments...

We use an experiment with experienced managers to provide more-direct evidence on how reporting goals and firm performance influence language choices. We find that bad news disclosures are less readable than good news, but only when managers have a stronger self-enhancement motive. Our results...

In financial communications, managers frequently attempt to persuade investors and other market participants to interpret information in a particular way. While research in accounting has examined characteristics that make a disclosure persuasive to investors, few papers examine whether and how...

We introduce a machine learning approach to quantify the thematic content of climate reporting in annual reports and use this to analyze firms’ climate reporting practices in the context of the widespread European Non-Financial Reporting Directive. We finetune ClimateBert to identify climate...

Due to its great contribution to environmental pollution, the American utility industry is increasingly under a high level of scrutiny by its stakeholders. Proponents of the legitimacy theory, argue that poor environmental performers are likely to voluntarily disclose more environmental...

Firms can disclose social information via different channels such as SEC filings, stand-alone sustainability reports, or financial reports. Based on the notion that investors interpret such disclosures from a risk perspective, we analyse how disclosure via each of the three channels relates to...