The Joint Influences of Resource and Time Bases in Management Earnings Guidance Disclosure

Abstract

This study provides evidence that investor’s evaluation is jointly influenced by multiple reference points of resource (internal and external), and time (backward-and forward-looking) information associated with management earnings guidance (MEG) disclosure. Investors have greater belief when they consider a company external information (as a company’s macroeconomics information) and MEG’s time information (as forward-looking future-oriented information) in earnings announcement than a single reference point only, which in turn, influences their judgments in evaluating company’s performance. This study also presents evidence that investors have greater anchor when a company’s macroeconomics is considered in earnings announcements than do when they are given internal information only. Overall, the experimental results suggest that company external (as a company’s macroeconomics information) and MEG disclosure (as forward-looking future-oriented information) in earnings announcement, effectively help investors in evaluating company’s performance. Moreover, this study shows that MEG disclosure, besides earnings announcement, and external information, have information contents, that investors use these multiple reference points of information to predict a company’s performance in the future.