| Abstrakt: |
Objective: This research aims to investigate the effect of profit management on managers' disclosure tone inconsistency and the moderating effect of managers' myopia. According to agency theory, managers' tone in qualitative disclosures may be due to managers' personal interests and the intention of deceiving the market, and according to behavioral theory, managers' tone may be due to managers' personal and psychological characteristics. There are different views regarding the managers' disclosure tone inconsistency. The first point of view considers its positive side and believes that the manager's disclosure tone aligns with signaling the market and reduces information asymmetry. The second point of view considers its negative side and emphasizes the manager's opportunistic behavior. The third point of view suggests the involuntary tone of the manager's disclosures, which is the subject of behavioral research. In the current research, based on the opportunistic perspective, the effect of earnings management on the managers' disclosure tone inconsistency, and according to the behavioral perspective, the effect of CEO myopia on the tone contradiction, as well as the effect of CEO myopia on the relationship between earnings management and tone. The findings of the research also confirm these relationships. The research hypotheses were developed based on theoretical foundations and research background: Hypothesis 1) Earnings management positively and significantly affects the managers' disclosure tone inconsistency. Hypothesis 2) The CEO's short-sightedness has a positive and significant relationship with managers' disclosure tone inconsistency. Hypothesis 3) The CEO's myopia increases the positive effect of earnings management on the managers' disclosure tone inconsistency. Method: In the current research, to measure the tone of the manager's disclosure in the annual reports of the board of directors to the ordinary meeting of shareholders from the dictionary of specialized words of the board of directors, to measure tone Inconsistency from the model of Hong. Jones's model has been modified to measure earnings management, and Anderson and Hsayu's model has been used to measure myopia. Data related to managers' disclosure tone was measured using Max QDA software. This software calculates the number and percentage of positive and negative words in Word text. Other data have been collected using document mining, Rahvard Novin software, and the study of audited financial statements of companies. Multiple linear regression has been used to analyse the data, considering the fixed effects of year and industry. This research used the data of 143 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2013 to 2014 and 1411 reports. Results: The results showed that earnings management and CEO myopia have a positive and significant relationship with managers' disclosure tone inconsistency, and also, the CEO myopia has a positive relationship between earnings management and Contrast increases the tone. Conclusion: From the findings of the research, it can be concluded that in line with the manager's agency theory and personal motives, profit management can lead to the biased tone of the managers in the explanatory reports. Also, in line with behavioral theory, myopic CEOs have more tone inconsistency in qualitative disclosures due to their emphasis on short-term future performance, and the CEO's myopia increases the positive effect of earnings management on the tone inconsistency of managers. This research helps the users to understand the qualitative information so that they pay more attention to the qualitative reports presented as a valuable source of information in accordance with the increasing reaction of the market to annual quantitative reports. Based on the research findings, it is recommended that participants in the capital market, legislators, standard setters and other stakeholders consider the possibility of bias in managers' disclosures due to personal motives or behavioral characteristics. It is also suggested that the legislators and professional associations, by enacting laws and presenting a single standard, limit the freedom of managers in qualitative reports and the choice of words to be an obstacle to control the perception of information users by managers and that measures be taken to prevent contradictions in the tone of managers. Also, laws governing the qualitative disclosure of information should be established by existing laws and standards regarding the quantitative disclosure of information. Therefore, reviewing, revising, and improving nonquantitative information disclosure standards in financial reporting will significantly help stabilize and reduce stock market fluctuations and increase the shareholder protection index. It is hoped that in future studies, other variables affecting tone contradiction will be investigated according to the views presented in the article and the impact of financial crises on managers' disclosure of tone contradiction. The most important innovation of the present research is that, for the first time, it examines the effect of profit management and CEO myopia on the tone inconsistency in managers' disclosure and the moderating effect of myopia and develops the related literature. Also, in this research, more than 100 positive and negative combinations were used to measure tone to reduce the limitations of common dictionaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
