Impression Management Motivations, Strategies and Disclosure Credibility of Corporate Narratives

Abstract

This paper explores the key factors that influence disclosure credibility of corporate managers. Mercer (2004) provided a critical and comprehensive account of the academic literature on disclosure credibility. This paper finds that investors, while determining the credibility of a management disclosure, examine four basic factors—the situational incentives at the time of the disclosure, management’s trustworthiness and competence, the degree of assurance for the message from internal and external sources, and several characteristics of the disclosure such as its precision, venue of release and time horizon.