ד"ר דיוויד בודוף, בית הספר למנהל עסקים, אוניברסיטת חיפה.

13.12.2022, חדר 9325 (חדר סמינרים של תקשורת), קומה 9, בניין רבין.

תקציר

Many financial disclosures such as earnings reports have a mandatory section with numeric financial results, as well as a voluntary section with a textual message from management that comments on the financial results and provides additional context. The textual message can adopt a neutral, positive, or negative tone. What distinguishes this setting from some other work on how corporate communications messages are received, is that this message does not arrive on its own. Rather, it accompanies a set of undisputed financial facts. Employing a 2-by-2 factor design, we study the effect of tone (positive/negative) given the factual financial results (good/bad). A mediating variable that we explore is persuasive intent, i.e. the recipient’s perception that the message is trying to persuade. Among other results, we find that in the case of bad financial facts, a positive tone leads to reduced credibility, and that the effect is mediated by persuasive intent. More interestingly, we find that even in the case of good financial results, a positive tone leads recipients to perceive persuasive intent, except that in that case, and in spite of the transparent effort to persuade, credibility is not reduced. These results have practical implications for investor relations and theoretical implications for models of credibility.