{"title":"Ex-military CEOs and readability of financial reports","authors":"Anand Jha, Humnath Panta, Salil K. Sarkar","doi":"10.1111/jbfa.12743","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this study, we examine the effect of ex-military Chief Executive Officers (CEO)s on the readability of 10-Ks. Using the Bog Index as a measure of readability, we find that firms run by ex-military CEOs have much more readable financial reports, mainly because of the words used in these financial reports. Ex-military CEOs also have a moderating effect—we find that their leadership lessens the adverse effects of loss and business complexity on the 10-K's readability. These results are consistent with the view that ex-military CEOs resist the temptation to obfuscate negative news and may communicate complexity in operations more clearly. Overall, our findings indicate a possible behavioral explanation for why some firms have more readable annual reports.</p>","PeriodicalId":48106,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Finance & Accounting","volume":"51 5-6","pages":"1302-1336"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Business Finance & Accounting","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jbfa.12743","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In this study, we examine the effect of ex-military Chief Executive Officers (CEO)s on the readability of 10-Ks. Using the Bog Index as a measure of readability, we find that firms run by ex-military CEOs have much more readable financial reports, mainly because of the words used in these financial reports. Ex-military CEOs also have a moderating effect—we find that their leadership lessens the adverse effects of loss and business complexity on the 10-K's readability. These results are consistent with the view that ex-military CEOs resist the temptation to obfuscate negative news and may communicate complexity in operations more clearly. Overall, our findings indicate a possible behavioral explanation for why some firms have more readable annual reports.
期刊介绍:
Journal of Business Finance and Accounting exists to publish high quality research papers in accounting, corporate finance, corporate governance and their interfaces. The interfaces are relevant in many areas such as financial reporting and communication, valuation, financial performance measurement and managerial reward and control structures. A feature of JBFA is that it recognises that informational problems are pervasive in financial markets and business organisations, and that accounting plays an important role in resolving such problems. JBFA welcomes both theoretical and empirical contributions. Nonetheless, theoretical papers should yield novel testable implications, and empirical papers should be theoretically well-motivated. The Editors view accounting and finance as being closely related to economics and, as a consequence, papers submitted will often have theoretical motivations that are grounded in economics. JBFA, however, also seeks papers that complement economics-based theorising with theoretical developments originating in other social science disciplines or traditions. While many papers in JBFA use econometric or related empirical methods, the Editors also welcome contributions that use other empirical research methods. Although the scope of JBFA is broad, it is not a suitable outlet for highly abstract mathematical papers, or empirical papers with inadequate theoretical motivation. Also, papers that study asset pricing, or the operations of financial markets, should have direct implications for one or more of preparers, regulators, users of financial statements, and corporate financial decision makers, or at least should have implications for the development of future research relevant to such users.