Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

submittedVersion

Publication Date

4-2017

Abstract

Investors, analysts, and regulators frequently advocate greater disclosure of nonfinancial information, such as customer metrics. Managers, however, argue that such metrics are costly to report, reveal sensitive information to competitors, and therefore will lower future cash flows. To examine these counterarguments, this study presents the first empirical examination of the prevalence and consequences of backward- and forward-looking disclosures of customer metrics by manually coding 511 annual reports of firms in two industries, telecommunications (365 reports) and airlines (146 reports). The results reveal significant heterogeneity in the disclosure of customer metrics across firms and between industries. On average, in both industries, firms make more backward-looking than forward-looking disclosures. Notably, forward-looking disclosures of customer metrics are negatively associated with investors' uncertainty in both industries and with analysts' uncertainty in the telecommunications industry. Importantly, the results do not support the managerial thesis that such disclosures have a negative impact on future cash flows.

Keywords

Accounting, Customer metrics, Disclosure, Financial reporting, Marketing-finance interface

Discipline

Corporate Finance | Marketing | Strategic Management Policy

Research Areas

Marketing

Publication

Journal of Marketing Research

Volume

54

Issue

2

First Page

239

Last Page

259

ISSN

0022-2437

Identifier

10.1509/jmr.14.0028

Publisher

American Marketing Association

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.14.0028

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