Voluntary Disclosure and Corporate Innovation: Evidence from Management Earnings Forecasts

This research consists of two parts. In the first part, I examine whether a firm whose chief executive officer (CEO) is more future-oriented (as measured by commitment to voluntary disclosure practices, i.e., issuing more frequent and more disaggregated earnings forecasts) is likely to be more successful in corporate innovation investment. Using a global sample of 26,364 firms from 27 countries and a single-country sample of 8,980 firms (domiciled in the US), I find that firms with more future-oriented CEO are granted more patents and receive more citations per patent. The results of additional cross-sectional analyses indicate that the relationship between commitments to voluntary disclosure and corporate innovation varies with various CEO-, firm-, and country-level factors.

In the second part of this research, I investigate the role of CEOs personality traits in corporate innovation and in the association between commitment to voluntary disclosure and corporate innovation. I find that firms with more extraverted CEOs tend to be more successful in their innovation investment in the future and that the signaling role of commitment to voluntary disclosure in corporate innovation success is more pronounced in firms with more extraverted CEOs. My findings also indicate that voluntary disclosure by more extraverted CEOs attracts more investor attention.

Collectively, the results of this research support the conjecture that future-oriented CEOs are likely to commit to voluntary disclosure practices to signal their ability to manage uncertainties associated with innovation investment and thereby achieve innovation success. Additionally, such signaling tends to be driven by more extraverted CEOs.

This research should be important for the investors and other stakeholders, as it shows how the likelihood of firms future innovation success can be inferred from CEOs observable earnings forecasting behavior. The findings may also be of interest to firms, as they highlight the importance of considering candidates level of extraversion when hiring a CEO. Finally, the findings of this research should be helpful to policymakers who develop initiatives to enhance firms voluntary financial disclosure, because this research highlights how the effectiveness of management earnings forecasts in signaling corporate innovation success varies with country-level institutional characteristics.