Managers' disclosure horizon in conference calls and firm performance

Abstract

This study examines whether managers strategically determine disclosure horizon in their conference call narratives. I first propose competing hypotheses about the association between managers’ disclosure horizon and current firm performance. Managers of poorly performing firms may use more short-term oriented narratives to explain bad current performance. Alternatively, these managers may use more long-term oriented narratives to divert investors’ attention away from the current performance. I also hypothesize that managers’ disclosure horizon in conference call narratives have different implications for future performance conditional on the current firm performance. I predict that long horizon narratives from well performing firms convey persistence of good performance, while long horizon narratives from poorly performing firms reflect opportunism in disclosure decisions. Using conference call transcripts between 2009 and 2018, I find that (1) when firms perform poorly, managers, on average, use more short horizon narratives in conference calls, (2) long horizon narratives from managers of well performing firms have more positive implications for future performance than long horizon narratives of managers with poorly performing firms. Collectively, evidence suggests that time horizon of narratives in conference calls reflects managers’ strategic disclosure decisions.