New Product Announcements, Innovation Disclosure, and Future Firm Performance
59 Pages Posted: 23 Mar 2020 Last revised: 3 Dec 2020
Date Written: December 2, 2020
Abstract
This study examines the relation between voluntary, non-financial disclosures of new product innovation and future firm performance. Measuring innovation based on the narratives in new product announcements (NPAs), we find that the level of innovation disclosed in NPAs predicts future financial performance for up to two years (after controlling for R&D capital and patents). Furthermore, we find that under capital markets pressures to deliver growth, managers provide a more comprehensive disclosure of new product innovation that maps into higher future sales. However, managerial incentives affect how the disclosure of new product innovation predicts future earnings as the higher innovation is associated with higher future costs. Our results suggest that capital markets pressures drive managers to conduct a form of “real innovation management” by delivering high innovation and sales but incurring higher costs. Myopic managers do so since costs are not disclosed in NPAs and are incurred in the future, while they may reap the benefits of an immediate positive market reaction at new product announcement. Overall, our study contributes to the understanding of managers’ disclosure of new product innovation.
Keywords: new product announcements, innovation, corporate disclosure, managerial incentives, earnings performance, qualitative disclosure, narrative disclosure
JEL Classification: M41, G34, G35
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
