Speaking with one voice? Individual preferences and managers’ personal communication style

Abstract

We examine whether and to what extent the personal communication of corporate information by individual managers is affected by their personal preferences for impression management. Using earnings conference calls as a setting in which to observe individual managers’ personal communication and controlling for firm-specific and manager-specific factors, we document that the communication style of managers who sell corporate stock shortly after the call is significantly more optimistic than that of the nonselling manager who participates in the same call. The effect is more pronounced in the less scripted and more flexible question and answer section and is more likely to emerge from Chief Financial Officer (CFO) than from Chief Executive Officer (CEO) communications. Taken together, our findings suggest that differences in individual communication styles are not only affected by personality and career backgrounds of individual managers but rather can also emerge from managers’ conscious or unconscious preferences for impression management.