This study examines whether top management team (TMT) functional background diversity affects managerial forecasting capability. We find that TMTs with more diverse functional backgrounds issue more accurate earnings forecasts. Additional tests reveal that the negative association between TMT functional background diversity and management forecast errors becomes weaker when TMTs work together for a long time, when subgroups are more likely to develop within the team, when CEOs are more powerful, and when team size is larger. By contrast, the reduction in management forecast errors is more significant for functionally diverse TMTs when forecasting difficulty is higher. These findings suggest that TMT functional background diversity plays an important role in managerial forecasting capability. Data Availability: Data are available from the sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: M14; M41.
{"title":"Functional Background Diversity of Top Management Team and Managerial Forecasting Capability","authors":"Bozi Liu, Dana Zhang","doi":"10.2308/jmar-2022-063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jmar-2022-063","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study examines whether top management team (TMT) functional background diversity affects managerial forecasting capability. We find that TMTs with more diverse functional backgrounds issue more accurate earnings forecasts. Additional tests reveal that the negative association between TMT functional background diversity and management forecast errors becomes weaker when TMTs work together for a long time, when subgroups are more likely to develop within the team, when CEOs are more powerful, and when team size is larger. By contrast, the reduction in management forecast errors is more significant for functionally diverse TMTs when forecasting difficulty is higher. These findings suggest that TMT functional background diversity plays an important role in managerial forecasting capability.\u0000 Data Availability: Data are available from the sources cited in the text.\u0000 JEL Classifications: M14; M41.","PeriodicalId":46474,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Management Accounting Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141851993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Incentive contracts containing ex ante targets are prevalent in organizations. Although prior research indicates that contract frame has no significant impact on employee performance when an ex ante target is assigned, we provide a more nuanced view by examining the role of narcissism in this relationship. Results indicate when an ex ante target is assigned, less narcissistic employees perform better than more narcissistic employees regardless of contract frame. In addition, target difficulty plays a role. When narcissism is lower, employees working under a less difficult target perform better than those working under a more difficult target, but there is no effect of contract frame. When narcissism is higher, we find an interaction between contract frame and target difficulty. When the target is less difficult, employees higher in narcissism perform better under the penalty than the bonus contract frame, whereas the opposite is the case when the target is more difficult. Data Availability: Data are available from the authors upon request. JEL Classifications: M41.
{"title":"The Effect of Narcissism and Contract Frame on Employee Performance in the Presence of an Ex Ante Target","authors":"Theresa Libby, Wioleta Olczak","doi":"10.2308/jmar-2023-045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jmar-2023-045","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Incentive contracts containing ex ante targets are prevalent in organizations. Although prior research indicates that contract frame has no significant impact on employee performance when an ex ante target is assigned, we provide a more nuanced view by examining the role of narcissism in this relationship. Results indicate when an ex ante target is assigned, less narcissistic employees perform better than more narcissistic employees regardless of contract frame. In addition, target difficulty plays a role. When narcissism is lower, employees working under a less difficult target perform better than those working under a more difficult target, but there is no effect of contract frame. When narcissism is higher, we find an interaction between contract frame and target difficulty. When the target is less difficult, employees higher in narcissism perform better under the penalty than the bonus contract frame, whereas the opposite is the case when the target is more difficult.\u0000 Data Availability: Data are available from the authors upon request.\u0000 JEL Classifications: M41.","PeriodicalId":46474,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Management Accounting Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141710096","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
When organizational crises arise, one way that managers can help employees cope is to provide empathetic adjustments, where managers adjust downward performance expectations for all employees while communicating the adjustment with empathy. In a competitive environment, we explore whether providing an empathetic adjustment to employees during a crisis affects their postcrisis effort. We conduct an experiment and observe that an empathetic adjustment significantly improves the postcrisis effort of top and bottom performers. The increase in postcrisis effort of top performers can be attributed to the effect of the adjustment, whereas the increase in postcrisis effort of bottom performers can be attributed to the effect of empathy. In a supplemental survey, we find a range of positive effects of empathetic adjustment, including increased engagement, reduced burnout, and lower turnover intentions. Data Availability: Data are available from the authors upon request. JEL Classifications: G31; G32; G33; M21.
{"title":"Navigating Unprecedented Times: How Managers’ Empathetic Adjustments in a Crisis Influence Employee Effort in a Competitive Environment","authors":"Leslie Berger, Lan Guo, Sara Wick","doi":"10.2308/jmar-2023-041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jmar-2023-041","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 When organizational crises arise, one way that managers can help employees cope is to provide empathetic adjustments, where managers adjust downward performance expectations for all employees while communicating the adjustment with empathy. In a competitive environment, we explore whether providing an empathetic adjustment to employees during a crisis affects their postcrisis effort. We conduct an experiment and observe that an empathetic adjustment significantly improves the postcrisis effort of top and bottom performers. The increase in postcrisis effort of top performers can be attributed to the effect of the adjustment, whereas the increase in postcrisis effort of bottom performers can be attributed to the effect of empathy. In a supplemental survey, we find a range of positive effects of empathetic adjustment, including increased engagement, reduced burnout, and lower turnover intentions.\u0000 Data Availability: Data are available from the authors upon request.\u0000 JEL Classifications: G31; G32; G33; M21.","PeriodicalId":46474,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Management Accounting Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141413989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Many firms implement pay cuts to reduce labor costs during organizational crises and there are different ways to distribute pay cuts among employees. We experimentally investigate how employees respond to equal-share pay cuts compared to performance-based pay cuts. We predict and find that the effect of different ways of allocating pay cuts is moderated by employees’ relative performance before the pay cuts. Compared to equal-share pay cuts, performance-based pay cuts lead to higher performance but only for employees who underperform their peers before the pay cuts. Performance-based pay cuts also result in higher team performance. Interestingly, we also find that when pay cuts are caused by an organizational crisis, low performers do not perceive it as unfair to receive a larger share of pay reduction. Our findings contribute to both literature and practice on pay reduction during organizational crises. Data availability: Data are available from the authors upon request. JEL Classifications: D91; J33; M40.
{"title":"Keeping Up with the Joneses during an Economic Crisis: The Effect of Different Types of Pay Cuts on Employee Performance","authors":"Mandy M. Cheng, Suyun Wu, Di Yang","doi":"10.2308/jmar-2023-039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jmar-2023-039","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Many firms implement pay cuts to reduce labor costs during organizational crises and there are different ways to distribute pay cuts among employees. We experimentally investigate how employees respond to equal-share pay cuts compared to performance-based pay cuts. We predict and find that the effect of different ways of allocating pay cuts is moderated by employees’ relative performance before the pay cuts. Compared to equal-share pay cuts, performance-based pay cuts lead to higher performance but only for employees who underperform their peers before the pay cuts. Performance-based pay cuts also result in higher team performance. Interestingly, we also find that when pay cuts are caused by an organizational crisis, low performers do not perceive it as unfair to receive a larger share of pay reduction. Our findings contribute to both literature and practice on pay reduction during organizational crises.\u0000 Data availability: Data are available from the authors upon request.\u0000 JEL Classifications: D91; J33; M40.","PeriodicalId":46474,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Management Accounting Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141414877","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We use an experimental setting to examine how an internal governance mechanism—board monitoring—moderates managers’ use of discretion in response to a regulatory governance mechanism—mandated clawbacks. Our study addresses a significant gap in the literature that has largely examined the effects of different governance mechanisms in isolation. We predict and find that mandated clawbacks increase managers’ tendency to use operational discretion (relative to accounting discretion) when board monitoring is weak, but not when board monitoring is strong. Our results have important policy implications by demonstrating that a firm’s internal environment may be more effective than rules in curtailing manager’s opportunistic use of discretion.
{"title":"How Board Monitoring and Mandated Clawbacks Shape Managers’ Use of Discretion: Experimental Evidence","authors":"Jeffrey Hales, Balaji Koka, Shankar Venkataraman","doi":"10.2308/jmar-2022-090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jmar-2022-090","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We use an experimental setting to examine how an internal governance mechanism—board monitoring—moderates managers’ use of discretion in response to a regulatory governance mechanism—mandated clawbacks. Our study addresses a significant gap in the literature that has largely examined the effects of different governance mechanisms in isolation. We predict and find that mandated clawbacks increase managers’ tendency to use operational discretion (relative to accounting discretion) when board monitoring is weak, but not when board monitoring is strong. Our results have important policy implications by demonstrating that a firm’s internal environment may be more effective than rules in curtailing manager’s opportunistic use of discretion.","PeriodicalId":46474,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Management Accounting Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141038132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Plenty to Be Thankful for: Influences, Sense of Purpose, and Community","authors":"Alan Webb","doi":"10.2308/jmar-2024-023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jmar-2024-023","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46474,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Management Accounting Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141135163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We examine whether corporate human capital management responses to the COVID-19 pandemic (COVIDHCM) have implications for firm value. We exploit newly mandated SEC human capital disclosures in 10-K filings to measure COVIDHCM investments. To validate our measure, we first show that our COVIDHCM measure is positively associated with how favorably employees view the firm’s pandemic response. We then examine the association between COVIDHCM investment and firm value. We find favorable COVIDHCM investment valuation effects appear only as financial flexibility increases. Financial flexibility pertains to the firm’s cash balance at the onset of the pandemic and captures resources that can facilitate investment during the pandemic. We also find that as financial flexibility increases, COVIDHCM investment is positively associated with overall employee satisfaction and employee productivity. Overall, the results suggest firm actions to protect employees’ welfare were value enhancing during the global pandemic, but only for firms with sufficient financial flexibility. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.
{"title":"COVID-19 Human Capital Management Response and Firm Value","authors":"William J. Mayew, Yuan Zhang","doi":"10.2308/jmar-2023-046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jmar-2023-046","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We examine whether corporate human capital management responses to the COVID-19 pandemic (COVIDHCM) have implications for firm value. We exploit newly mandated SEC human capital disclosures in 10-K filings to measure COVIDHCM investments. To validate our measure, we first show that our COVIDHCM measure is positively associated with how favorably employees view the firm’s pandemic response. We then examine the association between COVIDHCM investment and firm value. We find favorable COVIDHCM investment valuation effects appear only as financial flexibility increases. Financial flexibility pertains to the firm’s cash balance at the onset of the pandemic and captures resources that can facilitate investment during the pandemic. We also find that as financial flexibility increases, COVIDHCM investment is positively associated with overall employee satisfaction and employee productivity. Overall, the results suggest firm actions to protect employees’ welfare were value enhancing during the global pandemic, but only for firms with sufficient financial flexibility.\u0000 Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.","PeriodicalId":46474,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Management Accounting Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140771723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alexander Brüggen, C. Feichter, Katlijn Haesebrouck
Telecommuting has increased during recent years, and the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated its development even further. Despite various opinions, causal evidence about the effect of telecommuting remains scarce and the implications for management accounting are unclear. In a computerized experiment designed to distinguish between location and selection effects, we study individuals’ effort intensity and reporting. The results reveal no difference in effort intensity between the workplace and telecommuting, but individuals misreport more when telecommuting. This increased misreporting is due to a selection effect, where less honest individuals prefer to telecommute. A small-scale follow-up survey with practitioners corroborates our findings with respect to the reporting behavior. Moreover, although we again find no difference in effort intensity, the results provide preliminary evidence into location effects on other effort dimensions (duration, direction, and learning). Overall, our study shows that telecommuting has important implications for designing effective management control systems. Data Availability: Data are available from the authors upon request. JEL Classifications: M4; M5.
{"title":"Home Office: Evidence on Location and Selection Effects of Telecommuting","authors":"Alexander Brüggen, C. Feichter, Katlijn Haesebrouck","doi":"10.2308/jmar-2023-053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jmar-2023-053","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Telecommuting has increased during recent years, and the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated its development even further. Despite various opinions, causal evidence about the effect of telecommuting remains scarce and the implications for management accounting are unclear. In a computerized experiment designed to distinguish between location and selection effects, we study individuals’ effort intensity and reporting. The results reveal no difference in effort intensity between the workplace and telecommuting, but individuals misreport more when telecommuting. This increased misreporting is due to a selection effect, where less honest individuals prefer to telecommute. A small-scale follow-up survey with practitioners corroborates our findings with respect to the reporting behavior. Moreover, although we again find no difference in effort intensity, the results provide preliminary evidence into location effects on other effort dimensions (duration, direction, and learning). Overall, our study shows that telecommuting has important implications for designing effective management control systems.\u0000 Data Availability: Data are available from the authors upon request.\u0000 JEL Classifications: M4; M5.","PeriodicalId":46474,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Management Accounting Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140757350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study uses covenant violations as a quasinatural experimental setting to examine creditors’ roles in shaping corporate cost behavior. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that cost stickiness experiences a sharp decline following debt covenant violations when control rights are transferred to creditors. The cost stickiness effect is more substantial for borrowers with lower credit ratings and when creditors possess greater bargaining power. The effect is also more pronounced during industry downturns when borrowers have fewer alternative sources of finance. Results are consistent when I use alternative measures of cost stickiness and alternative research designs. Overall, my evidence indicates that creditors play a monitoring role in firms’ cost behaviors and identifies a specific channel (loan covenants) through which the misalignment of incentives can impact cost asymmetry. JEL Classifications: D24; G32; M41.
{"title":"Creditors’ Role in Shaping Asymmetric Cost Behavior: Evidence from Debt Covenant Violation","authors":"Jie Zhou","doi":"10.2308/jmar-2023-014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2308/jmar-2023-014","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study uses covenant violations as a quasinatural experimental setting to examine creditors’ roles in shaping corporate cost behavior. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that cost stickiness experiences a sharp decline following debt covenant violations when control rights are transferred to creditors. The cost stickiness effect is more substantial for borrowers with lower credit ratings and when creditors possess greater bargaining power. The effect is also more pronounced during industry downturns when borrowers have fewer alternative sources of finance. Results are consistent when I use alternative measures of cost stickiness and alternative research designs. Overall, my evidence indicates that creditors play a monitoring role in firms’ cost behaviors and identifies a specific channel (loan covenants) through which the misalignment of incentives can impact cost asymmetry.\u0000 JEL Classifications: D24; G32; M41.","PeriodicalId":46474,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Management Accounting Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139818623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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