Management, Writing Management and Earnings Management

The rhetorical use of narratives is important in order to understand quantitative information. However, when there are agency motives, the rhetoric may mislead the reader and thereby be used strategically rather than informative. Writing management or tone management of writing in qualitative texts is choosing the tone of writing as incommensurate with concurrent quantitative information. Similar to the earnings management, tone management may be opportunistically used in order to manipulate user's perceptions of firm fundamentals. In addition to make numbers acceptable, writing management can affect user’s perceptions by transferring a positive signal. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between writing tone and financial performance as well as experimental test of opportunistic use of writing management and earnings management simultaneously, using data from some firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange for the period 2008 to 2015. Correlation, multiple linear regression and logistic regression analysis are used to test the hypotheses. The findings show a significant positive relation between writing tone in the report of the Board on the firm's activities and the financial performance. Besides, the results show a positive relation between writing management and earnings management and it is expected that firms use writing management and earnings management simultaneously.