Investing in managerial honesty

Author / Creator

Gibson, Rajna, author

Available as

Online

Summary

Two laboratory experiments show that investors perceive a CEO to be more committed to honesty when the CEO resisted, at a personal cost, engaging in earnings management. For investment decisions, a...

Two laboratory experiments show that investors perceive a CEO to be more committed to honesty when the CEO resisted, at a personal cost, engaging in earnings management. For investment decisions, a one standard deviation increase in a CEO's perceived commitment to honesty compared to another CEO reduces the relevance of differences in the CEOs' claimed future returns by 40%. This effect is prominent among investors with a proself value orientation. To prosocial investors, their own honesty values and those attributed to the CEO matter directly; returns play a secondary role. Overall, CEO honesty matters to different investors for distinct reasons.

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