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Contemporary Accounting Research Vol. 36 No. 3 2019

Linguistic Information Quality in Customers' Forward‐Looking Disclosures and Suppliers' Investment Decisions

Can Chen1; Jeong‐Bon Kim2; Minghai Wei3; Hao Zhang1

1 University of Macau · 2 City University of Hong Kong · 3 Sun Yat‐Sen University

Abstract

This study examines whether and how linguistic information quality (measured by readability) of customer firms' management earnings forecast reports (MEFRs) affects supplier firms' investment quality (measured by investment efficiency). Our analyses reveal that supplier investment efficiency is positively associated with the average linguistic information quality of customers' prior MEFRs, and the positive association between supplier investment efficiency and customer MEFRs' numerical information quality is stronger in supplier firms with more readable customer MEFRs. Our analyses also reveal that higher linguistic information quality of customer MEFRs improves the monitoring of supplier firms by their outside stakeholders, such as institutional investors and financial analysts, and ameliorates the negative impact of suppliers' customer‐dependence on their investment efficiency. Our results suggest that greater linguistic information quality of a customer firm's forward‐looking disclosures is associated with higher‐quality investments made by its suppliers along the supply chain.

DOI
10.1111/1911-3846.12471
Volume
36
Issue
3
Pages
1751-1783
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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