CFO地位与管理层报告样板化

CFO Status and Textual Similarity in Management Discussion and Analysis

本文立足于我国强调差序格局、注重尊卑有伦的儒家文化背景,从CFO在上市公司地位高低的角度探讨了CFO如何影响公司文本信息披露行为。实证研究发现,当CFO在公司中地位越高时,他们能够更好地履行自身职能,越有助于遏制管理层报告流于形式的做法。当CFO任职公司为家族企业或位于儒家文化中心地区时,CFO地位与管理层报告样板化之间的负向关系越显著。进一步研究发现,当管理层报告样板化随着CFO地位提高而降低时,不仅可以向市场释放出更多信息含量,而且还降低了公司未来股价崩盘风险。本文研究对于我国背景下的CFO制度改革和完善以及提高上市公司会计信息披露质量具有积极的启示作用。

How CFO affects digital information disclosure has been widely discussed in academia.It is worth noting that CFO is not only responsible for the authenticity of accounting figures in periodic reports,but also for the fair presentation of text information.However,as another important part of information disclosure of listed companies,how text information disclosure behavior is affected by CFO has received little attention.In a standard financial report,textual or narrative information occupies most of the space and is an important part.Its main function is to help information users better understand and judge the information transmitted by digital disclosure.Management Discussion and Analysis(MD&A)mainly covers the management’s review and summary of the company’s operation during the reporting period and the prospect of the future development trend.It is one of the most important parts of the textual information disclosed in the annual report and an important explanation and supplement to the disclosure of financial digital information.This paper selects the MD&A part of the financial reports of listed companies in China as the starting point to investigate the relationship between the status of CFO and MD&A textual similarity.Empirical result shows that when CFO has a higher status in listed compony,he or she can better fulfills own responsibility and helps to curb the mere formality of MD&A.When the company where the CFO works for is a family business or is located in the center of Confucian culture,the negative relationship between CFO status and MD&A textual similarity becomes more pronounced.Further research also finds that when the MD&A textual similarity decreases with the improvement of CFO status,it can not only release more information content to the market,but also reduce the company’s stock price crash risk in the future.The findings of this paper have positive enlightenment for the reform and improvement of the CFO system under the background of our country and the improvement of the quality of accounting information disclosure of listed companies.Combined with the research findings of this paper,this paper puts forward the following suggestions:First,the regulatory authorities should further strengthen the construction of CFO system,improve the CFO’s decision-making position in the company through full authorization and clear responsibility guarantee,and ensure its authority independence and enthusiasm to perform its duties,so as to promote the CFO to fully perform the responsibility of entrustment and supervision of quantitative and qualitative information in the annual report.Second,the regulatory authorities need to further improve the requirements for information disclosure of listed companies.They not only need to strengthen the supervision and verification of qualitative information,but also pay attention to guiding and standardizing the disclosure of qualitative information of listed companies.Third,listed companies should give full play to CFO’s supervisory role on MD&A textual information disclosure,which will not only promote external stakeholders to better understand the company’s operating conditions,but also actively promote the company to be better recognized by market participants,so as to obtain various potential benefits brought by the reduction of information asymmetry.The contribution of this paper is mainly reflected in the following three aspects.First,from the perspective of CFO status,this paper expands the research on influencing factors of MD&A textual similarity,and provides new research findings and literature supplement for influencing factors of MD&A textual similarity.Second,based on the perspective of executives’characteristics,this paper expands the literature on the role of CFO in a company and enriches the literature on Upper Echelons Theory.By exploring the influence of CFO status on MD&A textual similarity,it provides a new perspective for the academic and practical circles to understand the role of CFO in information disclosure.Third,based on the Confucian cultural background in China,this paper enriches the study of traditional culture in the context of China’s capital market by introducing two scenarios:whether the company where CFO works for is a family business and whether it is located in the center of Confucian culture.