Jan Christoph Hennig

University of Groningen | RUG · Department of Accounting

Most recent studies on conference calls focus on the costs for firms that can arise from the calls' open nature. We study the benefits of conference calls and hypothesize that firms could use the balanced scorecard concept as a framework for presenting the information (i.e., balanced information composition) in conference calls to lower the cost of...

This study explores the determinants of common ownership. Drawing on two explanatory lenses, we suggest an information-based perspective and a competition-based perspective. We theorize on and empirically test both perspectives at the firm, industry, and country levels. Based on 14,372 observations of firms from the MSCI All Country World Index for...

While multinational firms invest large amounts of money in employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) to reduce turnover, there is little evidence regarding ESOPs' effectiveness in retaining rank-and-file employees and none on a global scale. Building on psychological ownership (PO) arguments, we predict that a rank-and-file employee's ESOP participati...

While the widespread diffusion of digital technologies forces incumbent firms to drive their digital transformation, many incumbents struggle to overcome inertial forces. In order to drive their digital transformation, incumbents increasingly turn to hiring outsider CEOs. However, while outsider CEOs are known to initiate change, their ability to i...

How do board environmental experts influence corporate environmental performance? Drawing on the advisory role of the board, we examine this question and propose that board environmental expertise fosters attention toward stakeholders through the development of decision-makers’ knowledge structures and the identification of opportunities to address...

Our study introduces the new concept of corporate purpose breadth – firms’ equally distributed attention to all stakeholders. Intuitively, it might feel right that firms around the world address the needs of all stakeholders in their strategy communication since this indicates the willingness to create value for all stakeholders, which, in conseque...

The widespread diffusion of digital technologies forces incumbent firms to drive their digital transformation (DT). DT not only involves a change in strategy but requires new institutional logics for firms helping to operate in digital business environments. Firms increasingly hire outsider CEOs to cope with this development, but the necessary inst...

Environmental management control systems (EMCSs) effectively integrate environmental objectives into corporate decision-making, yet implementation costs may discourage their adoption. To understand firms’ economic motivation for implementing EMCSs, we theorize that internal and external factors drive both their economic performance and the decision...

Research assigns significant share price relevance to linguistic tone in earnings conference calls. Tone is, however, only one facet in the mosaic of the soft information that is disseminated in the interactive conference call setting. We argue that investors exploit further aspects of this soft information to simultaneously assess the tone's credi...

Extant research on divestiture outcomes highlights various financial and strategic bene-fits at the firm level resulting in a predominantly positive image of divestitures. Challenging this view, we provide evidence for adverse outcomes of divestitures by focusing on the employ-ee level. We argue that the divesting firm’s remaining employees subject...

In this study, we examine how M&A due diligence length affects deal announcement reactions under varying industry conditions. Information asymmetries in M&As confront acquirers with an adverse selection problem which they aim to mitigate by conducting due diligence. However, the optimal due diligence length is likely to be a trade-off between infor...

In this study, we explore whether and how CEOs’ personality traits influence their dismissal-performance sensitivity. To do so we integrate attribution theory with literature on the well-established five-factor model of personality. We use a previously validated open-language tool and the Q&A section of quarterly earnings conference calls to measur...

Research Summary Recent research has shown that firms' ability to employ complex competitive repertoires can create long‐term competitive advantages. Since research on its determinants has focused on the firm level, we lack an understanding of how country‐level factors impact firms' implementation of complex competitive repertoires. Our cross‐count...

While CEOs’ commitment is crucial to the success of digital transformation, surveys show that CEOs of incumbent firms underemphasize the urgency and challenges of digital transformation. We suggest that career penalties may discourage CEOs from emphasizing digital transformation. We argue that this is driven by governance actors’ attribute substitu...

In this study, we examine new CEOs’ use of strategic topic setting as an impression management tactic in response to legitimation pressure from the capital market. We propose that the dismissal of the predecessor CEO represents a distinct opportunity for the new CEO to gain legitimacy by departing from the predecessor’s strategic agenda (i.e., stra...

In this paper, we study the influence of corporate culture (i.e., integrity) on impression management around M&As. Building on prior M&A literature, we argue that M&As provide a setting in which managers are prone to follow managerial self-interests and make use of impression management. Using a sample of 2,269 M&A transactions from S&P 500 firms b...

Alle DAX- und fast alle MDAX- und SDAX-Unternehmen führen Conference Calls mit Analysten und Investoren durch. Empirische Untersuchungen zeigen allerdings deutliche Verbesserungsmöglichkeiten bei der Anwendung auf. Ein aus den Befunden abgeleitetes Framework kann Unternehmen unterstützen, ihre Conference Calls effektiver zu gestalten

Many firms use equity-based profit sharing to boost participation in employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs). Using a large panel data set (N=262,824) of a multinational firm, we compare the reactions of former ESPP participants and non-participants to a profit sharing distribution (PSD). We find a dysfunctional effect. Although many former non-parti...

This paper contributes to the field of environmental management control systems (EMCSs). We approach EMCSs from an economic perspective and theorize internal and external contingency factors that drive both the economic performance and the decision to implement an EMCS. We argue that the level of environmental costs induced by a firm’s pollution in...

Firms aim to increase participation in employee ownership plans via profit sharing programs. This study investigates the impact of a profit sharing distribution on individual decisions to participate in the subsequent employee ownership plan (ESOP). We assume that a firm’s profit sharing distribution has a positive impact on subsequent ESOP partici...

Most recent studies on conference calls focus on the costs for firms that can arise from the calls’ open nature. We study the benefits of conference calls and hypothesize that firms could use the balanced scorecard concept as a framework for presenting the information (i.e., balanced information composition) in conference calls to lower the cost of...

This study uses employee-level data from a multinational industrial firm to measure the impact of peer effects on individual decisions not to participate in an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). The focus on nonparticipants is particularly relevant since employees that do not participate can be assumed to have less financial literacy, leading to...

Investors use qualitative information (e.g., tone) in disclosure, yet fail to interpret the discretionary component (e.g., abnormal tone). This paper examines whether manager-specific linguistic context factors can help investors interpret abnormal tone. We take advantage of the conference call setting, which allows us to identify manager-specific...

The usefulness of conference calls has recently attracted increasing interest in academia and corporate practice. Simultaneously, several researchers call for more thorough investigations of the analysts’ function as intermediaries in the firm’s information environment. Based on this, we investigate how firms could use conference call style to bett...