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Journal of Accounting and Economics Vol. 66 No. 2-3 2018

Managing reputation: Evidence from biographies of corporate directors

Ian D. Gow1; Aida Sijamic Wahid2; Gwen Yu3

1 The University of Melbourne · 2 University of Toronto · 3 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

open access

Abstract

We examine how directors’ reputations are managed through disclosure choices. We focus on disclosures in the director biographies filed with the SEC. We find that a directorship on another board is more likely to be undisclosed when the other firm experienced an adverse event—such as an accounting restatement, securities litigation, or bankruptcy—during the director's tenure. Withholding such information is associated with a more favorable stock price reaction to the director's appointment and the loss of fewer subsequent directorships. These findings suggest that reputation concerns lead to strategic disclosure choices that have real consequences in capital and labor markets.

DOI
10.1016/j.jacceco.2018.08.009
Volume
66
Issue
2-3
Pages
448-469
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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