企業年報文字資訊影響分析師預測之研究

Abstract

企業年報的決策攸關性一直是會計研究所關注的主題，以往的研究大多把焦點放在數量性會計資訊的資訊內涵，然而，隨著公司年報中文字資訊的比重愈來愈高時，文字性資訊的決策攸關性應受到正式研究的重視。 本研究旨在探討企業年報文字資訊是否影響分析師之盈餘預測，我們預期分析師會隨著公司管理當局藉由年報文字資訊所傳達的正負面觀感改變程度來調整其盈餘預測，同時當正負面觀感較含糊不清、不具一致性時，分析師盈餘預測之準確度會因其所面對的不確定性提高而下降。 本研究採用內容分析法衡量企業年報正負面觀感之程度，藉由分析樣本公司之年報，我們發現企業年報文字表達的正負面觀感確實會影響分析師盈餘之預測，當年報所透露的負面觀感程度愈高時，會傳遞愈多不利之消息給分析師，使其調降盈餘預測之幅度愈大，且當正負面觀感較含糊、分歧時，會對分析師盈餘預測準確度有負面影響。

The decision relevance of annual reports has always been a major concern to the accounting profession. Previous studies that addressed this issue mainly focused on the information content of quantitative accounting data. However, as firms has included more and more textual information in their annual reports, the decision relevance of textual information merits formal investigation. This study attempts to investigate whether textual information in annual reports affects analysts’ forecast. We posit that analysts will adjust their earning forecast based on the degree of positive/negative sentiment as conveyed by the management through the textual information contained in annual reports. We also posit that analysts’ forecast will be less accurate if the positive/negative sentiment is more ambiguous, because the analysts will then face a more uncertain situation. Applying content analysis to measure the degree of positive/negative sentiment, we analyze the data of listed firm-years. We find that annual reports sentiment does affect analysts’ forecast. The analysts downwardly adjust their earning forecast to a larger degree when the sentiment conveyed by the annual reports is more negative. We also find that analysts’ forecast are less accurate if positive/negative sentiment is more ambiguous.