On Board
Employee Responses to CEO Activism
Anahit Mkrtchyan, Jason Sandvik & Da Xu
Journal of Accounting and Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine employee responses to CEO activism, the increasingly common practice of CEOs taking public stances on socio-political issues. CEO activism may bolster employees’ identification with their organizations and strengthen shared beliefs among employees. Alternatively, CEO activism may alienate employees if CEO stances contrast with employees’ ideologies. We find that employee satisfaction is higher when CEOs engage in activism that is aligned with employees’ ideologies. Furthermore, firms with CEO activism experience a net inflow of productive, ideologically-aligned inventors, which contributes to increased firm-level innovation. The improvements in employee satisfaction and innovation constitute an important channel that connects aligned CEO activism to increased firm value.
Accentuate the positive? Strategic negativity amid the hazard of high expectations
Owen Parker et al.
Strategic Management Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
While previous organizational impression management (OIM) research focuses on highlighting firms in a favorable light, we explore CEOs' use of “strategic negativity” to manage expectations. We draw on OIM's psychological roots to predict that despite pressure to “be positive,” when CEOs perceive stakeholders are motivated to raise their expectations and have an opportunity to do so, CEOs strategically use negativity to counteract this anticipated expectation increase. We test our predictions on 7330 quarterly earnings calls from 370 publicly traded firms (2008–2019), examining how the “motive” of a positive material earnings surprise and “opportunity” of a new fiscal year jointly increase CEO negativity in prepared remarks. We elaborate the wide applicability of strategic negativity, the “other side” of the OIM phenomenon.
Ex Ante Litigation Risk and Firm Restatement Decisions: Evidence from District Courts
Agnes Cheng et al.
International Review of Law and Economics, September 2024
Abstract:
This study examines whether ex ante securities litigation risk prompts firms to make more or less voluntary restatements. The litigation risk is captured by a new measure based on the dismissal rate of the district court where the firm is headquartered. We find that misreporting firms headquartered in lenient (high dismissal rate) court jurisdictions are more likely to make voluntary restatements. Using the U.S. Supreme Court’s Tellabs decision as an exogenous shock that reduces the leniency of some district courts, we find robust evidence that higher litigation risk decreases managers’ incentives to admit their misreporting. Our finding sheds new light on the litigation risk-voluntary disclosure paradox by pointing to a positive aspect of court leniency in motivating self-policing behavior such as restatement.
Of Fogs and Bogs: Does Litigation Risk Make Financial Reports Less Readable?
Mark Humphery-Jenner et al.
Journal of Banking & Finance, June 2024
Abstract:
We predict that firms’ attempts to reduce litigation risk can inadvertently worsen financial report readability by increasing reports’ size, complexity, and altering their linguistic characteristics. We find that litigation risk reduces report readability. Readability worsens after firms experience a securities class action. This persists for several years after lawsuit resolution. To alleviate endogeneity concerns, we show that the litigation experience of a firm's managers and directors at other firms impacts readability. We also find that firms adjust readability around litigation flashpoints. Using an SEC rule change as an exogenous shock, we show that adjustments to readability can moderate firm litigation risk.
The Battle Between Activist Hedge Funds and Labor Unions
Xu Niu
Journal of Empirical Finance, forthcoming
Abstract:
Activist hedge funds are more likely to target unionized firms. When they do, the short- term stock performance is higher, especially when the hedge funds’ targeting strategy is hostile. Employees and labor organizations at target firms tend to oppose activist hedge funds. Firms are more likely to unionize after being targeted by hedge funds, and employee satisfaction deteriorates at target firms. Moreover, unionized firms are more likely to strike after being targeted, and those strikes in opposition to hedge fund intervention are more severe and more detrimental to the firms. This paper further explores potential costs and harmful consequences to the firm value due to the tension between activist hedge funds and labor unions. After being targeted, unionized firms tend to have lower profitability, weakened corporate governance, exposure to a higher degree of competitive and product market threats, and a higher crash risk in stock prices.
How Does Labor Mobility Affect Corporate Leverage and Investment?
Ali Sanati
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
I develop a dynamic model to investigate how labor mobility impacts firms’ decisions. In the model, firms make investment and financing decisions, hire labor with different skill and mobility levels, and set wages through bargaining. The model predicts that increased labor mobility leads high-skill firms to lower financial leverage, reduced responsiveness to investments, and decreased investment rates, while low-skill firms remain unaffected. I confirm these predictions in the data using shocks to workers’ mobility across firms. The results are useful in understanding the effects of labor mobility changes driven by government policies or technological shocks.
Is Blockholder Diversity Detrimental?
Miriam Schwartz-Ziv & Ekaterina Volkova
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We find that, overall, blockholder diversity, i.e., the firm shareholder base including several different types of blocks, is detrimental to firm performance. We show that lagged disclosure, on exogenous predetermined dates, that reveals an increase in block diversity is followed by a negative market reaction. Firms held by heterogeneous blockholders consistently perform worse than firms held by homogeneous blockholders. Block diversity is particularly detrimental when uncertainty is high. Disagreement among shareholders (e.g., as reflected in the frequency of lawsuits being filed) increases when the blockholder base is diverse. We make our blockholder data set public for the benefit of other researchers.
Communication Within Firms: Evidence from CEO Turnovers
Stephen Michael Impink, Andrea Prat & Raffaella Sadun
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper uses novel, firm-level communication measures derived from communications metadata several months before and after a CEO transition for 102 firms to study whether and how this organizational event is reflected in employees’ communication flows. We find that CEO turnover is associated with an initial decrease in intrafirm communication (−20% relative to the pre-CEO transition period), followed by a significant increase approximately five months after the CEO turnover (+20% relative to the pre-CEO transition period). The increase in communication is driven primarily by interdepartmental (i.e., communication involving employees of different functional departments) and vertical (i.e., communication among managers and employees) communication flows. This study suggests that communications metadata are a useful tool to examine how organizational change and related uncertainty impact information flows within firms.
Labor Supply and M&A in the Audit Market
Inna Abramova
Journal of Accounting and Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using labor supply shocks from the 150-Hour Rule, I find that a reduction in the labor supply of accountants increases audit firms’ mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and the audit market concentration. These M&A deals connect audit firms serving clients in the same states and lead to greater industry specialization of the merging firms. Although both small and large auditors generally engage in labor supply–driven M&A deals, large audit firms’ engagement in M&A is restricted to markets with a tight supply of accounting labor. Attenuations of the labor supply restrictions tend to limit the heightened M&A activities and mitigate the rise in the audit-market concentration from the 150-Hour Rule. I conclude that labor supply reductions affect the boundaries of audit firms, potentially changing the structure of the entire audit market.
Independence of board leadership of acquirers and the success of mergers and acquisitions
Edward Lawrence, Dung Nguyen & Arun Upadhyay
Journal of Corporate Finance, June 2024
Abstract:
Effective board monitoring prevents entrenched managers from undertaking acquisitions that are detrimental to shareholders. It also facilitates a smooth transition during the post-acquisition phase. We examine how independent board leadership affects M&A outcomes. Controlling for many firm, board, and CEO attributes, we find that acquirers with independent board chairpersons earn significantly higher CAR around M&A announcements. The positive effects of independent board chairpersons are more pronounced in acquirers with high monitoring needs. The boards led by independent chairpersons primarily add value by selecting targets with high synergetic gains, avoiding overpaying for targets, and facilitating smooth transition in the post-acquisition phase.