Gwen Yu is associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. This post is based on a recent paper authored by Professor Yu; Francois Brochet, Associate Professor of Accounting at Boston University Questrom School of Business; Gregory S. Miller, Ernst and Young Professor of Accounting at University of Michigan Ross School of Business; and Patricia Naranjo, Assistant Professor of Accounting at Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.
To what extent does the cultural background of managers impact how they communicate with investors? In our study, Managers Cultural Background and Disclosure Attributes, we build on prior research to deepen our understanding of the economic significance of individuals’ cultural background in a corporate context. More specifically, we focus on managers’ communication style during earnings conference calls. We examine how the cultural backgrounds of individual managers—based on their ethnic heritage—affect their disclosure narrative.