The Consequences of Financial Statement Comparability from the Perspective of Investors and Creditors with Emphasis on Role of Institutional Ownership

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Ph.D.Student of Accounting

2 aliabad katol

Abstract

Journal of Accounting Advances, (2020) 12(1): 95-128
DOI: 10.22099/JAA.2020.35032.1930
  Journal of Accounting Advances (JAA)
Journal homepage: www.jaa.shirazu.ac.ir/?lang=en
The Consequences of Financial Statement Comparability from the Perspective of Investors and Creditors Emphasizing the Role of Institutional Ownership < /strong>
  

  ARTICLE INF
ABSTRACT
Received: 2019-10-12
Accepted: 2020-1-29
  The comparability is an increasing qualitative characteristic of the usefulness of financial information and causes users to make better and more efficient investment decisions when evaluating alternative opportunities. The aim of this study is to investigate the consequences of earnings comparability and its components including cash flows and accruals from the perspective of investors and creditors with an emphasis on the moderating role of institutional ownership. The sample of the study included 119 companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the years 2011-2017. To test the hypotheses, we used a multivariate linear regression model and panel data. Findings of the research indicate that the cash flow comparability has a positive and significant effect on stock annual returns, and institutional ownership moderates this relationship. Furthermore, the earnings comparability has a negative and significant effect on stock return volatility, and institutional ownership moderates this relationship. In addition, the comparability of earnings and cash flows has a positive and significant effect on trade credit, but institutional ownership does not have a moderating effect on these relationships.
  
1- Introduction
       Comparability is one of the qualitative characteristics of financial information, which increases usefulness of information. Optimal decision making for investment in business units requires transparent and comparable financial information. Positive stock returns may be due to receiving dividends and the stock price rises. It is not possible to determine the future returns accurately. As a result, the act of buying stocks by stockholders is a risky action. Previous research shows that investors consider the stock returns volatility as a measure of risk (e.g., Zafar et al., 2008; De Medeiros & Quinteiro, 2005; and Osundina et al., 2016). Zafar et al. (2008) suggest that investors are interested to study the stock returns volatility, because they consider it as a measure of risk and, as a result, the capital market policymakers can use this criterion as a tool to measure vulnerability of a stock market. Creditors through credit transactions or lending provide part of the financial needs of companies. Yun (2013) believes that the quality of customer accounting information plays an important role in suppliers' decisions to sell credit to them.
       Accounting comparability lowers the cost of acquiring information, and increases the overall quantity and quality of information available to analysts about the firm (De­ Franco, Kothari, and Verdi, 2011) and decreases information asymmetry among capital market actors (Fang et al., 2012). It further reflects the company-specific information in the current period (Barth et al., 2013) and reduces the benefits of using private information (Brochet et al., 2013). Hamilton (1978) indicated that there is a positive relationship between information asymmetry and investment risk. Increasing the information asymmetry of a company increases the risk of its investment. Therefore, comparability reduces the information asymmetry and thereby it reduces the risk of investing in stock. Biais & Gollier (1997) argued that reduced information asymmetry between seller and buyer increases the trade credit granted by the seller to the buyer. As a result, increased comparability causes sellers of goods and providers of services to give more trade credit to companies.
       Institutional investors as owners of companies constitute one of the effective mechanisms of the corporate governance. These groups of shareholders hold a significant portion of the corporation's shares, and thus, they have a significant influence on companies and can affect the corporation’s accounting and financial reporting procedures (Gillan & Starks, 2003). According to the efficient monitoring hypothesis, the financial statements of companies with a higher portion of institutional shareholders have higher comparability. Previous research shows that institutional investors play a significant role in reducing information asymmetry (Elyasiani & Jia, 2008). In this study, we investigate the effect of earnings comparability and its components including cash flows and accruals on stock return, stock return volatility and trade credit with an emphasis on the moderating role of institutional ownership in companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange.
 
2- Research Hypothesis
       Based on the research objective, the theoretical literature and previous studies, the research hypotheses are as follows:
: Financial statements comparability has a positive effect on annual stock returns.
: Institutional ownership has a moderating effect on the relationship between financial statements comparability and annual stock returns.
: Financial statements comparability has a negative effect on stock return volatility.
: Institutional ownership has a moderating effect on the relationship between financial statements comparability and stock returns volatility.
: Financial statements comparability has a positive effect on trade credit.
: Institutional ownership has a moderating effect on the relationship between financial statements comparability and trade credit.
 
3- Methods
       The statistical population of this research includes all companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the period of 2011-2017. The sample of the study consisted of 119 active companies from 11 industries over a period of 7 years with 833 observations. We used the documentary research method to collect information on theoretical foundations and background of the research and Rahavard Novin Software and information available on the Tehran Stock Exchange website to collect the required data. Finally, we tested the research hypotheses using a multivariate linear regression model and panel data and Eviews9 software.
4- Results
       Findings of the research indicate that the cash flow comparability has a positive and significant effect on stock annual returns, and institutional ownership moderates this relationship. Furthermore, the earnings comparability has a negative and significant effect on stock return volatility, and institutional ownership moderates this relationship. In addition, the comparability of earnings and cash flows has a positive and significant effect on trade credit, but institutional ownership does not have a moderating effect on these relationships.
  5- Discussion and Conclusion
       The comparability is an increasing qualitative characteristic of the usefulness of financial information and causes users to make better and more efficient investment decisions when evaluating alternative opportunities. The results of testing the first and second hypotheses show that operating cash flow comparability has a positive and significant effect on stock returns, and this effect is moderated by institutional ownership. These results are consistent with the theoretical foundations of the research and studies results of Choi et al., (2019), Barth et al., (2018), Lu (2012), Bohl et al., (2009), Elyasiani and Jia (2008), Golarzi and Zangouri (2013), and Nazemi et al., (2015), and contrary to the results of research of Yassin et al., (2015), Holderness (2003). The results of testing the third and fourth hypotheses show that net income comparability has a negative and significant effect on stock returns volatility and this effect is moderated by institutional ownership. These results are consistent with the theoretical foundations of the research and study results of Rajgopal and Venkatachalam (2011), Heidarpoor and Zare Rafie (2014), and Moosavi Shiri et al., (2015). The results of testing the fifth and sixth hypothesis show that the comparability of net income and operating cash flow has a positive and significant effect on trade credit, but institutional ownership does not have a moderating effect on these relationships. These results are consistent with the theoretical foundations of the research and study results of Bharath et al., (2008), Aflatooni and Nemati (2018), and Ebrahimi Kordlar and Taheri (2015), and contrary to the research results of Izadi Nia and Taheri (2016).
  Keywords: Financial Statement Comparability, Stock Return, Stock Return Volatility, Trade Credit, Institutional Ownership.

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Journal of Accounting Advances
Volume 12, Issue 1 - Serial Number 80
December 2020
Pages 95-128

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History

  • Receive Date: 12 October 2019
  • Revise Date: 26 January 2020
  • Accept Date: 08 February 2020

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