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

英国金融业是经济活动的主要驱动力，透明和有效的金融沟通是其成功的关键决定因素。经审计的财务报表、未经审计的公司披露信息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。这些机制与来自分析师、财经记者、评级机构和公司外部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)。叙述性披露在公司与投资者的整体财务沟通中占很大一部分。文字注释有助于澄清被复杂的会计方法和脚注披露所掩盖的问题。此外，叙述总结公司战略，将结果与背景联系起来，解释治理安排，描述公司社会责任政策，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和影响财务报表以外向投资者披露信息质量的因素是拟议项目的主要焦点。虽然有相当多关于财务叙述的研究，但它一直受到用于衡量此类披露特征的方法的限制。特别是，需要从公司的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，限制了进展。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，以衡量英国公司披露的属性。特别是，我们将开发新的方法，使用基于计算机的年度报告排名来衡量公司叙述的质量和语气。这些排名所基于的排名和语言技巧将向那些寻求有关公司披露政策的信息或希望对特定叙述性陈述进行自己分析的人提供。我们还将利用我们的分析结果作为研究的基础，研究经理如何向投资者传达对公司业绩的预期，以及他们试图操纵投资者对报告结果的印象。该项目还将研究CFIE如何受到财经媒体行动的影响。尽管有大量的新闻评论和发表的投资咨询意见，但财经媒体产出的信息量及其对管理行为的影响尚未得到系统研究。我们的目标是开发衡量新闻评论的内容和信息量的方法，然后使用这些方法来检查财经媒体如何与企业报道互动，以确定CFIE的质量。我们的大部分分析将基于在伦敦证券交易所上市的英国公司的大样本。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。我们的统计测试将通过对关键利益相关者群体的采访来支持，以帮助我们更好地了解当前的财务沟通问题和做法。从这些访谈中获得的见解将被用来提炼我们的研究问题，并解释我们的结果。预计该项目将为商业政策制定者、会计准则制定机构和金融市场信息监管机构带来重要的见解。我们还预计，包括投资者、投资分析师、财务总监、审计师和公司官员在内的股票市场参与者将从这项研究中受益。

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.