Michel Magnan

• University of Quebec in Montreal

Purpose The aim of the paper is to investigate whether social disclosure and environmental disclosure have a substituting or a complementing effect in reducing information asymmetry between managers and stock market participants Design/methodology/approach This study attempts to provide a comprehensive analysis of a firm's social and environmental...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of governance on information asymmetry between managers and investors. Hence, the paper seeks to extend prior voluntary disclosure research. Design/methodology/approach The paper investigates how a firm's governance maps into the level of information asymmetry between managers and inve...

Adopting a monitoring perspective, this study aims to explain how and why firms provide web-based disclosure about their value creation and its underlying processes. We rely on the balanced scoreboard approach to measure disclosure. Our results suggest that costs incurred by capital markets' participants as well as monitoring by the board and the m...

In Canada, antidumping complaints against foreign competitors must be lodged with the Canadian External Trade Tribunal. The tribunal assesses if foreign competition is harming domestic producers by considering many factors, such as the plaintiff's financial condition reflected in its financial statements. Hence, to obtain a favourable decision from...

Focusing on transitional goodwill-impairment losses (losses) recorded by Canadian firms following the adoption of revised standards on purchased goodwill, we investigate the value relevance and timeliness of mandatory changes in accounting principles accounted for using the retroactive method. We find a negative relationship between reported losses...

We extend the literature on voluntary disclosure by investigating the impact of precision attribute of social and human capital disclosure on information asymmetry. We provide evidence on how the stock market reacts to different levels of information precision. Overall, results suggest that quantitative disclosure reduces share price volatility and...

Adopting a stockholders' interests' perspective, we explore three related questions: (1) What are the scope and patterns of corporate performance disclosure on the Internet? (2) What are the determinants of the extent and scope of corporate performance disclosure on the Internet? (3) Is corporate performance disclosure on the Internet relevant for...

This study investigates if and how the use of the retroactive method to account for a mandatory accounting change affects a firm's measurement and recognition choices. We examine if reporting incentives and constraints are associated with the magnitude of transitional goodwill impairment losses reported by Canadian firms implementing Section 3062 o...

In this study, we analyze the information dynamics between corporate environmental disclosure, financial markets (as proxied by financial analysts' earnings forecasts) and public pressures (as proxied by a firm's media exposure). We adopt a comprehensive view of disclosure that encompasses environmental information that is both print-based as well...

In this study, we assert and test that the determination of corporate performance communication and financial analysts' earnings forecasting work are closely intertwined processes. The resulting endogeneity in capital markets' information dissemination and use is strongly influenced by a country's governance regime. Results from simultaneous equati...

This paper investigates the impact of environmental reporting on the relationship between a firm's earnings and its stock market value. Our measure of environmental reporting comprises only information that is voluntarily disclosed by firms and which meaning implies specific initiatives or events. To assess how country-specific contexts may affect...

Income trusts are rapidly emerging as a key force in Canadian capital markets and their unit market capitalisation exceeded 300 billion Canadian dollars by early 2008. One of the peculiarities of income trusts is that GAAP-derived measures, such as earnings, are replaced by non-GAAP measures, such as distributable income, as performance benchmarks....

This paper examines whether voluntary disclosure by Swiss firms constrains the use of discretionary accruals to smooth earnings, and explores the effect of voluntary disclosure on the value relevance of earnings. We focus on Swiss firms because Switzerland's financial reporting system provides managers with extensive discretion in corporate disclos...

RésuméLe présent article s'intéresse à la détermination de l'ampleur des octrois d'options d'achat d'actions du point de vue de la gouvernance. Il se focalise sur les 100 plus grandes sociétés canadiennes durant la période 1998–2001 et montre que la structure de leur actionnariat influence les choix de rémunération des dirigeants (options par oppos...

The possibility of measuring and comparing sustainability performance is generally taken for granted in management studies and practices based on the evaluation, selection and ranking of the supposedly best companies in the field. The purpose of this article is to question this basic assumption by analyzing the comparability of sustainability perfo...

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Using an exploratory research perspective, we examine how multinational firms¿ executives¿ motivations map into corporate website performance disclosure. Our focus is on managements¿ beliefs about the relevance of financial, social and environmental performance disclosures and how these beliefs relate to the firm¿s website disclosure practices. For...

Investors and stakeholders in continental Europe are becoming increasingly concerned about corporate environmental policies. As a result, many firms are voluntarily increasing the extent of their environmental disclosure in their annual report. While mostly unregulated, corporate environmental disclosure does have potential economic significance co...

This paper's purpose is to assess how management's perceptions regarding certain aspects of environmental reporting relate to the firm's actual reporting strategy. Toward that end, we propose a model where a firm's environmental disclosure is conditional upon executive assessments of corporate concerns. The study relies on a survey that was sent to...

The possibility of measuring and comparing sustainability performance is generally taken for granted in management studies and practices based on the evaluation, selection and ranking of the supposedly best companies in the field. The purpose of this article is to question this basic assumption by analyzing the comparability of sustainability perfo...

Performance reporting by oil and gas firms is multidimensional, with earnings, cash flows from operations and changes in reserves revealing different facets of underlying firm performance. However, for Canadian oil and gas firms, managerial incentives for earnings management as well as investors’ appreciation of various performance metrics can be a...

This study investigates the relevance of reported earnings in the context of an institutional environment, i.e., Switzerland, in which investors focus on dividends. In conjunction with a dividend focus, the financial reporting environment faced by Swiss firms provides their managers with more accounting discretion than managers of Anglo-Saxon firms...

In response to investors? and other stakeholders? concerns about corporate environmental policies, many firms are voluntarily increasing their level of environmental disclosure since there is a scarcity of alternative information sources. Using a cost-benefit framework, this study intends to identify determinants of corporate environmental reportin...

The purpose of this study is to investigate two issues regarding the relation between stock option grants and firm performance. First, is the magnitude of stock option grants determined by firm performance ? Second, do stock option grants influence a firm's future performance ? Results indicate that firms with a good performance track record tend t...

The purpose of our study is to investigate how investors assess the financial implications of a firm's environmental performance, as measured by its pollution record relative to existing regulations (pollution measure). It is expected that the larger a firm's pollution measure, the greater is the magnitude of implicit environmental liabilities whic...

RÉSUMÉ L’objet de la présente recherche est de quantifier l’incidence sur la valeur d’une entreprise de la prise en compte, par les investisseurs, de son bilan environnemental. Il est présumé qu’un coût implicite est imposé à chaque entreprise par les marchés boursiers selon la qualité de son bilan environnemental. Ce coût implicite n’apparaît pas...

This paper investigates the relation between the market valuation of publicly-listed corporations and their social performance, as measured by their pollution record relative to environmental regulations. Expectations are that corporations with a good (bad) environmental record should be valued at a premium (discount) by the stock market. Such a re...

Le présent article s'intéresse à la divulgation d'informations environnementales et s'appuie sur la théorie des coûts d'information et la théorie de la légitimité. Le but de l'étude est double : évaluer l'ampleur de la divulgation environnementale par Internet et; analyser les déterminants de la divulgation environnementale par médium traditionnel...