Does the financial analysts' usage of non-financial information influence the analysts' forecast accuracy? Some evidence from the Belgian sell-side financial analyst

This paper examines whether the use of non-financial information by sell-side financial analysts influences the accuracy of analysts’ forecasts. The research findings, based on a survey of Belgian financial analysts, suggest that financial analysts who use more forward-looking information and more internal-structure information offer more accurate forecasts. Furthermore, the listed Belgian firms examined in this study have improved their non-financial information reporting over time. However, neither the frequency nor the quantity of non-financial information mentioned by financial analysts in their reports appears to have increased over time.     

Investor attention and information diffusion from analyst coverage

This study examines the impact of investor attention and analyst coverage on the diffusion of information. Using trading turnover as a proxy for investor attention, the results show that attention is crucial to the information diffusion from financial analysts. The effect of analyst coverage on improving stock synchronicity is greater when investors are more attentive. Firms with less analyst coverage rely more heavily on investor attention to assimilate information. The lead–lag effect in high and low analyst-following firms is driven by the relative more attention given to firms that have high analyst coverage.     

An exploratory study of relative and incremental information content of two non-financial performance measures: Field study evidence on absence frequency and on-time delivery

In this exploratory field study, I test the relative and incremental information content of two non-financial performance measures compared to financial performance measures for future financial performance. The proprietary database used is from the contracts of the managers of 27 responsibility centers of a large Dutch service firm. Three years of monthly observations are used for the analysis.The accounting literature is ambiguous about whether non-financial measures have relative or incremental information content, or both, beyond lagged financial measures for future financial performance. Although it is often stated that non-financial performance measures are better indicators for future financial performance than lagged financial performance, the empirical accounting research evaluates the incremental contribution of non-financial measures beyond lagged financial measures.I find that in my research context the two non-financial measures absence frequency and on-time delivery do not have more relative information content than lagged financial measures. However, the non-financial measures have incremental information content beyond the lagged financial measures for both future costs and future revenues. In addition, the individual non-financial measures have different lags for costs and revenues.     

The New Business of Government Budgeting: Reporting Non-Financial Performance Information in Victoria

Since the early 1990s the general and financial management of the Victorian public sector has been significantly transformed. This research examines and explains the content, nature and quality of non-financial disclosures, including those related to performance indicators, through a disclosure indicator analysis of reporting practices in recent government budget papers. It reports the results of its application to the last three years' budget papers. The findings highlight the problems in the reporting of non-financial performance indicators in the Victorian budget papers. These results indicate a significant gap between "official" expectations of the type of items required to be reported and actual budgetary reporting practices – some many years after regulation and major financial accountability reforms have taken place.     

An examination of factors affecting Chinese financial analysts’ information comprehension,analyzing ability,and job quality

This paper examines various factors affecting Chinese financial analysts’ information comprehension, analyzing ability and job quality. We hypothesized that financial analysts with better educational background, more experience, superior resources provided by large brokerage firms and more information sources have better information comprehension, stronger analyzing ability, and higher job quality. Using a survey method to collect data, we found that information sources have a significant impact on analysts’ information comprehension, analyzing ability and job quality. Specifically, analysts tend to exhibit greater information comprehension and better job quality when they conduct more company-level surveys. Additionally, when they have more access to firms’ indirect information, analysts tend to have a stronger analyzing ability and better job quality. We also found that analysts’ educational background has a positive impact on their analyzing ability while analysts’ work experience improves their job quality. This study’s results indicate that financial analysts are still a fledgling profession in current China, and the capabilities of Chinese financial analysts need to be improved through additional training and continued education. Moreover, our study is important in highlighting the urgency of fostering the development of the financial analysis profession in China.      

The New Business of Government Budgeting: Reporting Non-Financial Performance Information in Victoria

Since the early 1990s the general and financial management of the Victorian public sector has been significantly transformed. This research examines and explains the content, nature and quality of non-financial disclosures, including those related to performance indicators, through a disclosure indicator analysis of reporting practices in recent government budget papers. It reports the results of its application to the last three years' budget papers. The findings highlight the problems in the reporting of non-financial performance indicators in the Victorian budget papers. These results indicate a significant gap between "official" expectations of the type of items required to be reported and actual budgetary reporting practices – some many years after regulation and major financial accountability reforms have taken place.     

衍生工具应用能改善资本市场信息环境吗？——基于分析师预测行为的视角

本文通过文本搜索获得企业衍生工具运用情况,在此基础上研究了企业衍生工具应用对分析师跟踪和预测信息结构的影响,并且进一步区分了明星分析师和非明星分析师预测行为的差异。研究结果表明,企业运用衍生工具会导致分析师跟踪数量显著减少,公共信息精度下降,从而对资本市场信息环境产生负面影响。但是,进一步我们发现分析师跟踪数量的减少和公共信息精度的下降是由非明星分析师所致,明星分析师跟踪数量和公共信息精度没有显著变化,私有信息精度反而增加;而非明星分析师跟踪数量显著减少,公共信息精度明显下降。本文的结论有助于我们进一步理解衍生工具应用对资本市场信息环境的影响,以及分析师在信息传递中的作用机制。     

The role of performance measurement and evaluation in building organizational capabilities and performance

This study examines the processes through which the availability of broad-based strategically relevant performance information impacts on the performance outcomes of organizations. We explore the role of evaluation mechanisms in influencing managers’ use of broad-based performance measurement information for feedback and feed-forward control. We hypothesize that these resultant decision-making patterns impact the exploitation and identification of strategic capabilities within an organization and in turn organizational performance. Using a structural equation model, we find support for a model in which the degree of commonality between measures identified as decision-facilitating and decision-influencing is significantly associated with the use of decision-facilitating measures for both feedback and feed-forward control. In turn, the extent to which decision-facilitating measures are actually used by strategic business unit managers impacts on the strategic capabilities of the organization and subsequently its performance. Overall the results suggest that to encourage managers to use the multiple financial and non-financial performance indicators increasingly incorporated in contemporary performance measurement systems it is imperative that performance evaluation schemes are also designed to reflect these measures. To the extent performance evaluation schemes do not reflect such decision-facilitating measures it is less likely managers will use these indicators to effectively manage performance. The resultant performance implications for the organization arise from the impact of these decision effects on the exploitation of existing capabilities and the search for and identification of new strategic opportunities.     

Earnings Forecasts and the Information Contained in Spinoff Announcements

This study examines spinoff announcements in conjunction with financial analysts’ forecasts of earnings. The analysis shows that spinoff announcement abnormal returns are significantly related to the firm's information environment as proxieci by financial analysts’ earnings prediction errors. The findings also indicate that analysts significantly increase their short-term earnings forecasts in response to spinoffs, but do not significantly revise their long-term earnings forecasts. However, the earnings revisions are not significantly different across prediction error groups, which confirms that spinoff-related abnormal returns cannot be attributed solely to expected performance gains.     

Structure,formality and the importance of financial and non-financial information in strategy development and implementation

The strategic management literature indicates that there is high variety in the form and nature of strategic processes within organizations. By contrast, writers on strategic accounting tend focus on the structure and formality of strategic activities and call for a balance of financial and non-financial information to support strategic processes. This study explores the conceptual basis for this perspective and also investigates empirically whether such characterisations hold in practice. The empirical part of the study draws on questionnaire responses by senior corporate accountants and interviews held with a subset of respondents from this group. The results indicate that strategy development and implementation activities tend to be structured and formal, and while greater emphasis is placed on financial information in strategy implementation, in strategy development both financial and non-financial information are used. Differences however prevail across firms as to what is considered to be strategic and the role played by financial and non-financial information varies across companies. A high degree of organization specificity also exists in the uses of strategic accounting information. The study found support for normative ideals within the firms investigated but high organizational particularity also pervades the deployment of strategic accounting information.     

Different uses of performance measures: The evaluation versus reward of production managers

This study examines how the importance that is attributed to a variety of financial and non-financial performance measures depends on the type of use – evaluation versus reward. Survey data, collected on a sample of industrial companies, provide consistent evidence of a difference in the importance attached to performance measures for these two uses. More importance is attached to both financial and non-financial performance measures for the periodic evaluation than for variable rewards. The study also shows that the influence of production strategy and departmental interdependence on the importance attached to performance measures differs for evaluation and reward uses. A production strategy focused on differentiation by product-performance has a negative effect on the importance attached to financial measures for variable rewards but no effect on their importance for periodic evaluation. Moreover, departmental interdependence decreases the importance attached to financial measures for variable rewards but not for periodic evaluation. Departmental interdependence also has only a positive effect on non-financial measures for periodic evaluation and no effect on non-financial measures for variable rewards. Overall, the data suggest that it is essential to distinguish between different uses when studying performance measurement choices and their determinants.     

Overseas equity analysis by UK analysts and fund managers

This paper examines how UK-based analysts and fund managers cope with international differences in financial reporting systems when analysing overseas equities. This subject has become increasingly important given the internationalisation and institutionalisation of equity markets. Our results indicate that there is a substantial reliance on sources other than the annual report by both groups when analysing overseas companies. We also find considerable variation in the approach to analysing equities internationally. In particular, we find evidence that there is greater reliance on alternative sources to accounting information (such as other foreign analysts) in countries characterised as having weak equity markets. Finally, we examine the coping mechanisms that analysts and fund managers employ when analysing overseas securities, including reliance on locally based analysts, use of non-accounting information, use of more familiar accounting standards and re-stating accounts to a more familiar basis.     

High-Technology Intangibles and Analysts' Forecasts

This study examines the association between firms' intangible assets and properties of the information contained in analysts' earnings forecasts. We hypothesize that analysts will supplement firms' financial information by placing greater relative emphasis on their own private (or idiosyncratic) information when deriving their earnings forecasts for firms with significant intangible assets. Our evidence is consistent with this hypothesis. We find that the consensus in analysts' forecasts, measured as the correlation in analysts' forecast errors, is negatively associated with a firm's level of intangible assets. This result is robust to controlling for analyst uncertainty about a firm's future earnings, which we also find to be higher for firms with high levels of internally generated (and expensed) intangibles. Given that analyst uncertainty increases and analyst consensus decreases with the level of a firm's intangible assets, we also expect and find that the degree to which the mean forecast aggregates private information and is more accurate than an individual analyst's forecast increases with a firm's intangible assets. Finally, additional analysis reveals that lower levels of analyst consensus are associated with high-technology manufacturing companies, and that this association is explained by the relatively high R&D expenditures made by these firms. Overall, our results are consistent with financial analysts augmenting the financial reporting systems of firms with higher levels of intangible assets (in terms of contributing to more accurate earnings expectations), particularly R&D-driven high-tech manufacturers.     

Lead indicator models and UK analysts' earnings forecasts

This study examines the predictive ability of models which adjust random walk forecasts of corporate earnings, to incorporate past changes in economic lead indicators. The results suggest that changes in the broad money supply measure M4 contain predictive ability, beyond equivalent changes in other lead indicators or an individual firm's earnings. When forecasts from the broad-money model are compared with forecasts generated by financial analysts a size effect is evident: the superiority of analysts' forecasts is apparent much earlier for large firms than for small firms. This result is consistent with studies suggesting a size-related differential in the collection and dissemination of information by market participants.     

The construction of calculative expertise: The integration of corporate governance into investment analyses by sell-side financial analysts

This study analyses an emerging form of economic calculation in financial markets, namely, the integration of corporate governance into investment analyses undertaken by sell-side financial analysts. It examines how the expertise of these analysts in corporate governance integration is constructed, with particular attention to the calculative ideas and calculative devices through which it is achieved. Corporate governance integration is shaped by certain ‘calculative ideas’. These relate to ideas about the potential link between corporate governance and financial performance and the ideal of incorporating governance criteria into the investment process. This paper suggests that these calculative ideas have constituted the discursive conditions under which analysts sought to build their expertise in a new domain. The paper also shows that at a time when the quality of traditional sell-side research was scrutinised, the investment professional association and constituents of the investing public, through their arguments and discourses, constructed analysts as the ‘specialists’ having the imperative and credibility to perform corporate governance integration. Furthermore, as the paper demonstrates, analysts have sought to ‘theorize’ calculative ideas. They have normatively deployed certain ‘calculative devices’ to make corporate governance integration operational. Corporate governance integration is conducted in ways that make it receptive to the claims of a particular form of expertise, that of analysts. This paper suggests that it is through the assemblage formed over time between the ideas and aspirations on the one hand, and the tools and devices on the other, that the expertise of analysts in corporate governance integration has gradually been formed.     

以平衡计分卡为基础构建商业银行业绩评价的非财务指标

随着国内商业银行之间以及与外资银行的竞争日益加剧,我国商业银行原有的业绩评价体系已经不适应新的形势.平衡计分卡认为,业绩评价应以顾客、内部经营及学习与创新等非财务指标来补充财务指标,并针对各个方面的业绩目标,设计出相应的计量指标,以便系统、全面、迅速地反映企业的整体运营情况,为企业管理服务.本文以平衡计分卡为基础,分析了我国商业银行业绩评价体系的发展沿革及现状,指出了我国商业银行业绩评价注重财务评价而忽视非财务评价的问题,借鉴西方商业银行使用平衡计分卡的先进经验,从顾客、员工、组织、内部经营、创新等方面构建了商业银行业绩评价的非财务指标体系.     

Getting compensation right - The choice of performance measures in CEO bonus contracts and earnings management

This paper examines whether the choice of performance measures in CEO bonus compensation contracts is associated with earnings management. From a sample of FTSE350 Index firms over the period of 2005–2014, we investigate the relationship between earnings management, through discretionary accruals and real activities management, and (1) the use of and extent of reliance on financial and non-financial performance measures in CEO bonus contracts; and (2) the use of long-term and short-term measures in CEO bonus contracts. We find less income-increasing manipulation through discretionary accruals and expenses when non-financial performance measures (NFPMs) are used alongside financial performance measures (FPMs) and when the NFPMs are used to a larger extent than FPMs. Furthermore, we find less discretionary accruals when long-term performance measures are used. This implies that non-financial and long-term measures encourage executives to work towards the long-term success of the company rather than their own short-term reward.     

Seeing is believing: analysts’ corporate site visits

This study examines the impact of corporate site visits on analysts’ forecast accuracy based on a sample of such visits to Chinese listed firms during 2009–2012. We find that analysts who conduct visits (“visiting analysts”) have a greater increase in forecast accuracy than other analysts. Consistent with the notion that site visits facilitate analysts’ information acquisition through observing firms’ operations, we find that the results are stronger for manufacturing firms, firms with more tangible assets, and firms with more concentrated business lines. Moreover, we find that the effect of a site visit is greater when the site visit is an analyst-only visit, when the current visit is preceded by fewer visits, and when visiting analysts are based far from the visited firms. Furthermore, we find that site visits partially mitigate nonlocal analysts’ information disadvantage. Collectively, these results indicate that site visits are an important information acquisition activity for analysts.     

Inter‐temporal changes in analysts’ forecast properties under the Australian continuous disclosure regime

Corporate disclosure regulations are important mechanisms for investor protection. This study examines the inter‐temporal changes in analysts’ forecast properties over the period 1988–2001 as Australia’s continuous disclosure regulation and enforcement intensity changed. The effectiveness of the continuous disclosure regime has been a question of interest since its inception, but research in this area is limited. Our results suggest that analysts’ forecast accuracy and dispersion improved for sample firms in response to the proposal and introduction of continuous disclosure regulations. However, following increased enforcement from 1998, analysts’ forecast dispersion deteriorated for small firms, possibly due to a decrease in private information received by financial analysts as regulators became more proactive in enforcing the ban on selective disclosure.