| According to information economics,investors rely on the information they can get to make decisions.The more information there is in the market,the more accurate and scientific decisions investors will make.Institutional investors are special investors of listed companies.On the one hand,institutional investors have the financial and professional advantages,which enable them to collect and analyze information of listed companies.In addition to the regular reports and temporary announcements publicly disclosed by listed companies,institutional investors can also learn about the operation and financial status of listed companies through the performance briefing,teleconference or corporate site visits of listed companies.Compared with other information acquisition methods,it is particularly important for institutional investors to conduct corporate site visits on listed companies.When a listed company discloses its annual report or issues an interim announcement,it may delay disclosure or withhold disclosure of some major events.Investors will not be informed of this information until the securities regulatory authorities take regulatory measures or impose administrative penalties.However,through corporate site visits,investors can actually observe the company’s plant equipment and r&d center,understand the actual situation and strategic planning of the company’s production and operation,and feel the local economic development level(Bushee et al.,2011;Tan Songtao and Cui Xiaoyong,2015),thus "seeing is believing"(Cheng et al.,2016).It has been a long time for institutional investors to conduct corporate site visits on listed companies.In October 2003,Shenzhen stock exchange issued guidelines on investor relationship management of listed companies of Shenzhen stock exchange,aiming at regulating investor relationship management of listed companies.In section 5,"site visits",the guideline states that listed companies should try to arrange investors,analysts and fund managers to visit the site of the company or the project where the fund is raised.There is no mandatory disclosure requirement for activities related to the relationship between investors and listed companies.In August 2006,The Shenzhen Stock Exchange has issued the Guidelines for Fair Information Disclosure of Listed Companies on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange,to encourage the listed company information disclosure system of registration for future reference,for the information such as investigation,interview and interview shall be registered in detail,and regularly report the registration information to disclose(Jia Wanjiao et al.,2015).The existence of this compulsory disclosure policy makes it possible for scholars to study relevant fields.However,unfortunately,the current research on the corporate site visits of institutional investors mainly focuses on its relationship with the market,ignoring the impact of the corporate site visits events of institutional investors on the behavior of information publishers(i.e.,the company’s management).Previous studies have shown that as an important source of information,management performance forecast provides investors with information about the future prospects of the company,changes the expectations of investors,and finally affects the trading behavior of investors(Schoenfeld & Jordan,2016)and the cost of capital of the company(Kumar et al.,2016).Cao Wei,2017),thus receiving great attention from capital market participants.Then,will the institutional investors influence the management’s earnings forecast behavior through corporate site visits,so as to meet their investment decision-making needs?Based on the above analysis,this paper selected the a-share listed companies in Shenzhen from 2011 to 2015 as the research object,and empirically analyzed the impact of institutional investors’ corporate site visits on the accuracy of earnings forecast and its mechanism.The research shows that the change of field survey times(number of participating institutions)of institutional investors is significantly positively correlated with the accuracy of earnings forecast,and this positive relationship will be more significant when the degree of information asymmetry is higher.Further research shows that the positive relationship between the number of field surveys(number of participating institutions)of institutional investors and the accuracy of earnings forecast is more significant in the context of high degree of marketization.For pessimistic and optimistic earnings forecast,the positive correlation between the number of field surveys(number of participating institutions)of institutional investors and the accuracy of optimistic earnings forecast is more significant.This research mainly includes the following six parts: the first part is the introduction,which introduce the research background,research methods and ideas of this paper,including the framework and content of this paper.The second part is literature review,which reviews and elaborates the field research and performance forecast of institutional investors in turn.Based on the evaluation of these documents,the paper puts forward the problems to be studied,and provides some support for the follow-up hypothesis deduction.The third part is the theoretical basis of this study,including the introduction of the related concepts of institutional investors’ field research and performance forecast,the analysis of the relationship between the main variables and the deduction of hypotheses and theoretical elaboration in this paper.The fourth part is the research hypothesis and model construction.Through logical reasoning and deduction,the hypothesis of institutional investors,information asymmetry and accuracy of performance forecast is put forward.In addition,in this part,after referring to the existing literature,an empirical test model is created,and the relevant variables are defined and measured.The fifth part is the empirical results and analysis.After the hypothesis and test model are built,the field survey data and financial data of listed companies from 2011 to 2015 are collected and processed.Calculate the value of accuracy of performance forecast.Secondly,we use multiple regression to verify the hypothesis.Then,further tests are carried out.Finally,the robustness test is carried out to ensure that the empirical conclusions of this paper are trustworthy.The sixth part is research conclusions and policy recommendations.This part summarizes the hypothesis deduction and research design of the previous part,and puts forward corresponding policy recommendations in encouraging the healthy development of institutional investors and improving the performance forecast disclosure system.At the same time,this part also analyses the limitations of this article and the future research directions as a whole. |
