The Effects of Information Acquisition of Corporate Disclosure: Evidence from Audit Quality and Corporate Innovation

Abstract

The thesis explores the consequences of information acquisition. Specifically, it investigates whether and how auditors and companies acquire, analyze, and integrate information from public filings and the impacts of this information acquisition on audit quality and corporate innovation.

In the first study, I examine the relation between auditor information acquisition along the supply chain and audit quality. Auditors accumulate client-related knowledge during information acquisition, and this knowledge assists them with planning and performing the audit. After controlling for auditor-specific and client-specific variables, I find that auditor information acquisition along the supply chain has a positive association with audit quality. The positive relation is more pronounced with lower information processing costs, greater economic bonds between the client and its customers, or greater auditor supply chain knowledge. My results are robust to alternative measures of information acquisition, different time windows, misclassification issues, falsification tests, and removing observations with common auditors. Collectively, my study contributes to the literature on the audit process and audit quality.

In the second study, I examine the consequences of companies’ information acquisition of peers’ corporate disclosures in terms of innovation spillovers. Due to the high information asymmetry stemming from the innovation process, managers have strong incentives to acquire information from corporate disclosures. More importantly, companies can learn from the acquired information and adopt peers’ innovative practices in their organization. As such, I expect that companies’ information acquisition can facilitate innovation spillovers. After controlling an array of relation-specific and innovation-specific variables, I find a positive relation between companies’ information acquisition and innovation spillovers. The positive relation is more pronounced when the firm pursues an exploratory strategy, the acquired information has stronger business prospects, the searching firm and searched firm have greater knowledge synergy, and innovation followers acquire information from innovation leaders. My results are robust to a battery of robustness tests. Moreover, I demonstrate that information acquisition not only promotes information spillovers but also facilitates corporate innovation. The study contributes to the literature on information acquisition and furthers the understanding of whether and how companies exert real efforts to enhance innovation.