경영자 예측정보의 연속적 공시행태에 관한 연구- 전기 예측정확성 및 재무분석가의 영향을 중심으로

We examine the manager's consecutive reporting behavior about the voluntarily disclosed earnings forecast. Specifically, the primary objective of our study is to explore the effect of prior management earnings forecast accuracy and financial analysts on the current management earnings forecasts disclosure probability. First, we examine how the accuracy of prior management earnings forecast influences the disclosure probability of current management earnings forecast. In addition, we investigate how the number of analysts following and analysts' relative earnings forecast accuracy of prior year impact on the relation between prior management earnings forecast accuracy and current management earnings forecasts disclosure probability. In order to perform the empirical analysis, we hand collect management earnings forecasts for fiscal years 2002-2008 from Financial Supervisory Service's Data Analysis, Retrieval and Transfer System (DART). Our specific results are given as follows. First, this research finds that as the accuracy of prior management earnings forecasts decreases the disclosure probability of current management earnings forecasts also decreases. Extant literatures demonstrate that various economic incentives have an effect on the disclosure policy of voluntarily disclosed earnings forecast. Therefore, if managers expect higher expected benefits of disclosing earnings forecast, he would be inclined to make an earnings forecast. On the other hand, when managers expect lower expected benefits of disclosing earnings forecast, he would not be inclined to make an earnings forecast. In this paper, based on the number of prior researches, we maintain that a relatively large errors of prior management earnings forecasts diminishes the expected benefits of current management earnings forecasts disclosure, which in turn generates a diminution of managers' incentives to provide current management earnings forecasts to the market participants. Therefore, the systematic positive (+) association between prior management earnings forecasts accuracy and current management earnings forecasts disclosure probability is consistent with our expectations. Second, when the analysts' prior relative earnings forecast accuracy are relatively high, the significant positive (+) association between prior management earnings forecasts accuracy and disclosure probability of current management earnings forecasts becomes small. On the contrary, the number of analysts' following of prior year does not affect the systematic positive (+) association between prior management earnings forecasts accuracy and disclosure probability of current management earnings forecasts. These findings indicate that since the manager's specific ability to forecast a firm's prospect increases in a relatively short period as the analysts' prior relative earnings forecast accuracy becomes higher, the manager's incentives to stop management earnings forecast in the current period which is due to prior management earnings forecasts errors decreases. However, since the number of analysts' following of prior year is limited in improving manager's specific ability to forecast a firm's prospect, it does not influence the manager's incentives to stop management earnings forecast in the current period which is due to prior management earnings forecasts errors. This paper, by demonstrating the systematic positive (+) association between prior management earnings forecasts accuracy and current management earnings forecasts disclosure probability, provides a new insight about the manager's consecutive earnings forecasts disclosure policy. In particular, prior literatures which deal with management earnings forecasts concentrate mainly on the temporary forecasting behavior of managers. On the other hand, our research is discriminated by focusing on the sequential management earnings forecast strategies. As a result, our research might expand the scope of prior literatures which have dealt with manager's voluntary disclosure policyAlso, establishing the fact that the significant positive (+) association between prior management earnings forecasts accuracy and current management earnings forecasts disclosure probability decreases as the analysts' prior relative earnings forecast accuracy increases, this study documents the crucial impact of the analysts' on the manager's consecutive earings forecasts behavior.