We examine whether and to what extent the personal communication of corporate information by individual managers is affected by their personal preferences for impression management. Using earnings conference calls as a setting in which to observe individual managers’ personal communication and controlling for firm-specific and manager-specific factors, we document that the communication style of managers who sell corporate stock shortly after the call is significantly more optimistic than that of the nonselling manager who participates in the same call. The effect is more pronounced in the less scripted and more flexible question and answer section and is more likely to emerge from Chief Financial Officer (CFO) than from Chief Executive Officer (CEO) communications. Taken together, our findings suggest that differences in individual communication styles are not only affected by personality and career backgrounds of individual managers but rather can also emerge from managers’ conscious or unconscious preferences for impression management.

中文翻译：

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用一个声音说话？个人偏好和管理者的个人沟通方式

我们研究个体管理者对公司信息的个人交流是否以及在多大程度上受到他们个人对印象管理的偏好的影响。使用收益电话会议作为观察个别经理人的个人沟通并控制公司特定和经理人特定因素的环境，我们发现在电话会议后不久出售公司股票的经理人的沟通风格明显比电话会议更乐观参与同一电话会议的非销售经理的姓名。这种效果在脚本较少且更灵活的问答部分更为明显，而且更有可能来自首席财务官 (CFO)，而不是首席执行官 (CEO) 的沟通。总而言之，我们的研究结果表明，个人沟通风格的差异不仅受到个别管理者的个性和职业背景的影响，而且还可能源于管理者对印象管理的有意识或无意识的偏好。