This study develops and tests a set of hypotheses on how to manage investors' evaluative uncertainty during M&A through a specific form of impression management, namely, interim news events. We suggest that voluntary disclosures are key in influencing investors' reactions during M&A. Empirical support for our theoretical arguments is shown in a sample of 36,376 deals and 163,023 associated interim news events carried out by NYSE and NSDQ listed organizations over 10 years. Our research contributes to literature on voluntary disclosures, impression management, and managing M&A.
Key words: M&A; voluntary disclosures; evaluative uncertainty
INTRODUCTIONThere is significant information asymmetry between outside investors and inside managers (Miller and Rock, 1985;Myers and Majluf, 1984). In contexts associated with information asymmetry, investors are faced with evaluative uncertainty (Fiske and Taylor, 2008;Moskowitz, 2005). Evaluative uncertainty refers to the absence of clear and unambiguous indicators or benchmarks of performance (Graffin and Ward, 2010). Unfavourable consequences for organizations regarding information asymmetry and evaluative uncertainty are tied to adverse selection (Akerlof, 1970), negative impact on stock (Copeland and Galai, 1983;Glosten and Milgrom, 1985) and undesirable effects on the cost of capital (Baiman and Verrecchia, 1995;Leuz and Verrecchia, 2000). 15879 2 A critical situation in which stakeholders are likely to face high levels of evaluative uncertainty is merger and acquisition (M&A) deals. This is because M&A are contexts associated with high information asymmetry (Reuer, Tong, and Wu, 2012; Boeh, 2011). M&A can play a vital role in the success and failure of organizations, so investors' ability to evaluate them is of great importance. Managers who have detailed knowledge of the M&A deal may reduce this asymmetry and manage evaluative uncertainty by voluntarily disclosing information to investors which in turn is likely to impact on their decisions about the value of the firm (Narayanan, Pinches, Kelm, and Lander, 2000). To deal with these asymmetries, organization leaders actively manage their firm's informational environment, and do so in ways they hope will favourably affect the impressions of targeted stakeholders (Puffer and Weintrop, 1991;Zajac and Westphal, 1995;Graffin, Carpenter, and Boivie, 2011). Information asymmetry is traditionally seen as the main reason why managers should disclose voluntary information to the market (Avallone and Ramassa, 2011). Any such action which is carried out with the intent of influencing an audience's perception of the organization is called organizational impression management (Elsbach, Sutton, and Principe, 1998).Scholars have studied impression management in various contexts such as executive compensation (Zajac and Westphal, 1995;Wade, Porac, and Pollock, 1997;Porac, Wade, and Pollock, 1999), strategic change (Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991;Fiss and Zajac, 2006), and more recently CEO succession (Graffin et al, 2011). However,...