Corporate Integrity and Information Asymmetry: Evidence from Iran

Corporate integrity is considered as part of the company's development strategies, which in the long run can lead to the increased firms' financial transparency to stakeholders. The purpose of our study is to present a corporate integrity model and, then to investigate its effect on firms' information asymmetry. In this study, to measure the corporate integrity, we use Meta-synthesis and Delphi analysis in the qualitative part. Then, in the quantitative section, the corporate integrity questionnaires were sent to the managers of the sample firms. Subsequently, a total of 138 questionnaires were completed and sent back, which were used as the final samples for analysis. In addition, information asymmetry is measured using the three different proxies, namely bid-ask spread, turnover, and Amihud illiquidity measure. Our findings show a significant and negative effect of corporate integrity on information asymmetry. This results suggest that corporate integrity, by promoting behavioral values based on truthfulness and commitment, the structures will enhance the corporate governance mechanisms and, thereby, firstly motivate the managers to reduce the agency gap and, secondly, implement a more effective level of the supervisions on the firm's performances in front of the stakeholders by accelerating the circulation of information and giving timely and reliable feedback to the stakeholders. This is the first study that presents a corporate integrity model through qualitative analysis and then, investigates the effect of corporate integrity on firms' information asymmetry. ThereCorporate integrity is considered as part of the company's development strategies, which in the long run can lead to the increased firms' financial transparency to stakeholders. The purpose of our study is to present a corporate integrity model and, then to investigate its effect on firms' information asymmetry. In this study, to measure the corporate integrity, we use Meta-synthesis and Delphi analysis in the qualitative part. Then, in the quantitative section, the corporate integrity questionnaires were sent to the managers of the sample firms. Subsequently, a total of 138 questionnaires were completed and sent back, which were used as the final samples for analysis. In addition, information asymmetry is measured using the three different proxies, namely bid-ask spread, turnover, and Amihud illiquidity measure. Our findings show a significant and negative effect of corporate integrity on information asymmetry. This results suggest that corporate integrity, by promoting behavioral values based on truthfulness and commitment, the structures will enhance the corporate governance mechanisms and, thereby, firstly motivate the managers to reduce the agency gap and, secondly, implement a more effective level of the supervisions on the firm's performances in front of the stakeholders by accelerating the circulation of information and giving timely and reliable feedback to the stakeholders. This is the first study that presents a corporate integrity model through qualitative analysis and then, investigates the effect of corporate integrity on firms' information asymmetry. Therefore, our study can contribute to the extant literature of this context.ore, our study can contribute to the extant literature of this context.