We examine the effect of media coverage on firm innovation. Using a comprehensive sample of corporate news coverage and patenting over the period from 2000 to 2012, we find a negative relation between media coverage and firm innovation. We further document the two offsetting economic mechanisms underlying the impact of media coverage on innovation: the media’s role of short-term pressure on managers relates negatively to innovation, while its role of mitigating financial constraints is positively associated with innovation. Our findings provide new insights into the effect of news coverage on firms’ long-term growth.

We create a culture dictionary using one of the latest machine learning techniques—the word embedding model—and 209,480 earnings call transcripts. We score the five corporate cultural values of innovation, integrity, quality, respect, and teamwork for 62,664 firm-year observations over the period 2001–2018. We show that an innovative culture is broader than the usual measures of corporate innovation – R&D expenses and the number of patents. Moreover, we show that corporate culture correlates with business outcomes, including operational efficiency, risk-taking, earnings management, executive compensation design, firm value, and deal making, and that the culture-performance link is more pronounced in bad times. Finally, we present suggestive evidence that corporate culture is shaped by major corporate events, such as mergers and acquisitions.