In a recent study, FJRG affiliate Steph Grant (University of Washington), Frank Hodge (University of Washington), and Rosh Sinha (Indiana University) highlight the importance of matching a CEO’s communication style with disclosure medium expectations as the communication style that is effective for traditional mediums, like conference calls, may backfire when using new disclosure mediums like Twitter, causing investors to react negatively. Grant and her colleagues found that when the disclosure medium is a conference call, investors are less willing to invest when the CEO violates expectations by being modest about positive firm performance rather than bragging. In contrast, when the disclosure medium is Twitter, investors are less willing to invest when the CEO violates expectations by bragging rather than being modest. Finally, regardless of the disclosure medium, investors are least willing to invest in a firm when the CEO humblebrags.

The full-text paper, published in Accounting, Organizations and Society, is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2018.03.006