| Popis: |
Firms have increasingly used social media such as Twitter to disseminate corporate disclosures, particularly since the regulation of these platforms by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2013. However, research on social media dissemination is still limited. Even though a few studies have already examined this topic, their findings are not generalizable due to their sole focus on the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and Australia, countries with similar high disclosure levels. The following dissertation expands this research by investigating Twitter dissemination in Germany, a country with a considerably lower disclosure level than the countries mentioned above. In particular, this study examines (i) how the prevalence of Twitter as a dissemination channel has developed over time in Germany, (ii) what type of firms apply this dissemination channel and, (iii) how this dissemination channel affects information asymmetries between firms and investors. The empirical analysis is based on 2,048 earnings disclosure tweets disseminated by German-listed firms between 2009 and 2019. The descriptive findings show that in 2009 only 7.5 percent of these firms used Twitter for earnings dissemination, while by 2019, this proportion had increased eightfold to 62 percent. Thus, Twitter has become a standard dissemination channel for earnings disclosures among German firms. However, not all firms use Twitter to the same extent. Instead, the logistic regression indicates that firms with a larger size, greater profitability, increased valuation risk, lower investor sophistication, and stronger Twitter commitment are more likely to disseminate earnings on this platform. Further, the multivariate regressions indicate that Twitter dissemination enables firms to reduce information asymmetries, whereby this effect is more pronounced for less visible firms. The results of this dissertation broadly contribute to current corporate disclosure literature. The findings are also of practical relevance to firms and retail investors when deciding whether to use or not to use Twitter. |
