Voluntary Disclosure in Business Life Cycles Stages

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to verify the existence between informational content disclosed during conference calls regarding the life cycles stages from firms negotiated in the B3 stock exchange during the period from 2007 to 2016.

Method: To calculate life cycles, accounting indicators proposed by Anthony and Ramesh (1992) were used; and for the quantification of informational content, the model adapted by Matsumoto, Pronk and Roelofsen (2011) was used. Data were collected from Investor Relation (IR) and Economática data base.

Originality / Relevance:: Identifies factors of the lifecycle stages of companies that contribute to an increase or decrease in the duration of information content through the audio conference mechanism.

Results: The results indicate that audioconference are related to the business lifecycle stages of maturity and decline, demonstrating that companies in the decline stage tend to have shorter average conference calls and a longer questions and answers section than at the maturity stage. Similarly, when companies disclose more informational content in one of the audioconferencing configurations to another it is no longer informative.

Theoretical / methodological contributions: Because companies are in the stages of uncertainty, they present more informational content as a strategic way of attracting the attention of market agents, and also with a view to reducing informational asymmetry, in line with the theoretical basis presented in the study.