Although investor relations officers (IROs) play an important role in managing corporate communications with important stakeholders and in helping their companies achieve an appropriate valuation, the academic literature on investor relations is only in its early stages. IROs are responsible for communicating with the investment community and shaping the company narrative. As a result, IROs interact regularly with sell-side analysts and institutional investors and are at the center of many disclosure-related activities, including quarterly earnings conference calls and press releases, among others. In fact, because they manage so many important corporate disclosure activities, IROs are frequently referred to as “chief disclosure officers.”
We survey 610 IROs of publicly traded U.S. companies and interview 14 IROs to better understand their roles in managing companies’ communications with sell-side analysts and institutional investors and in overseeing corporate disclosures. Our survey explores numerous topics for which IROs are uniquely qualified to provide valuable insights, including: the reasons, settings, timing, and value of IROs’ interactions with sell-side analysts and institutional investors; how IROs control outsiders’ access to senior management; how sell-side analysts help IROs convey their company’s message to institutional investors; the value of various types of disclosures for communicating the company narrative; the role of IROs (vis-à-vis the role of CFOs) in preparing various disclosures; planning for and managing public earnings conference calls; the size and composition of the conference call queue; private “call-backs” after public earnings calls; the determinants of IROs’ internal performance ratings; and IROs’ experiences with Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD).