Financial statements have become less understandable to the average investor, leading them to rely on more readable, narrative corporate reports. Due to their mostly unregulated status, managers have greater discretion over the content and presentation of narrative corporate reports. Numerous studies find that seemingly simple presentation choices can impact investor decision-making. Repetition is a form of impression management, drawing attention towards repeated information. This study uses an experiment to investigate the impact of repetition within earnings press releases on non-professional investors. Its use is widespread in narrative corporate reports. The research examines the effect of emphasising positive information through repetition on non-professional investors’ earnings judgements. Eye-tracking technology explores non-professional investors’ visual attention to key areas of emphasis within the earnings press release. The research finds repetition influences less-experienced non-professional investors, an impact driven by the frequency rather than location of positive information within the earnings press release. Less-experienced non-professional investors attend to different types of information within the earnings press release, which increases their susceptibility to impression management.
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Dr Kate Cullen joined Maynooth University in 2019, having spent ten years with University College Dublin (UCD) as a member of the College of Business faculty and the Institute of Banking, where she led their Executive Education offering. A BComm and Masters in Business Studies graduate from UCD, Kate started her career in Davy Stockbrokers and then Deloitte where she trained as a management consultant and completed her management accountancy training. In 2009, Kate was awarded the Denis O'Connor Doctoral Scholarship in Accounting and she returned to UCD to complete her PhD in the area of impression management within corporate reports under the supervision of Prof Aileen Pierce and Prof Ciaran O hOgartaigh. Kate's research interests are interdisciplinary in nature and focus on the areas of impression management within financial reports and healthcare costing. Kate also has a keen interest in ethics, culture and corporate governance within financial services.