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| Does the Front-stage Behavior of Entrepreneurs Affect Firm Value？ Evidence from Sina Microblogs |
| SUN Tong, XUE Shuang, CUI Qinghui
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School of Business, Zhejiang Wanli University;
Institute of Accounting and Finance/School of Accounting, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics;
College of Business, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics |
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Abstract Entrepreneurs who serve as board directors or CEOs play an important role in the development of enterprises. Traditionally, they influence enterprise value mainly through back-stage behaviors, such as mapping the firm's strategy, making financing and investing decisions, or conducting operational management. With the development of information transmission in the Internet era, a revolution is occurring in business models and the management of enterprises. Increasingly, entrepreneurs are moving from the back stage to the front stage and actively interacting with the public.
With the rapid development of the Internet, the influence of we-media has increased dramatically. We-media is becoming a powerful method for transmitting information. Sina microblogs is an example of we-media that has been popular since 2010. Some entrepreneurs have registered their own Sina microblog account and use it to post news or express their viewpoints. Microblogs offer a rapid, comprehensive, and low-cost channel through which to engage with the public. However, it is a significant time investment for entrepreneurs to write or maintain a blog. Entrepreneurs are busy, and the time cost is higher for an entrepreneur than for a regular employee. There is also a reputation risk for an entrepreneur writing a blog. Considering the benefits and costs of microblogs for entrepreneurs, is it beneficial for entrepreneurs to disclose or share information or viewpoints on a microblog？ There is no clear answer to this question in the literature.
Some studies focus on firms' official microblogs and find that they can effectively promote communication between enterprises and investors. Although a few papers investigate the behavior of entrepreneurs on we-media platforms and attempt to explain the effect of this behavior from the perspective of the entrepreneur's image or spirit, the impact of an entrepreneur's personal microblog on his/her firm's valuation remains unknown.
Based on the theory of information transmission, we investigate the impact of the release and content of entrepreneurs' microblogs on their firms' valuation. We use a Python script to search and process entrepreneurs' microblog data from the Sina microblog platform. Other data come from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research Database. The empirical results reveal the following. (1) The front-stage behavior of an entrepreneur, which is defined as the release of a microblog, has a positive impact on the firm's value in terms of operating cash flow and reduced systematic risk. (2) Text analysis of entrepreneurs' microblogs reveals that enterprise value is increased when the proportion of a microblog's content that is personal, frequency of the use of “@,” and proportion of text with a positive tone are higher. (3) The higher the degree of information asymmetry, the more likely the entrepreneur will be to choose to open a microblog account.
The findings in this paper fill a gap in the literature and have important implications for entrepreneurs deciding how to behave when facing the public. This paper makes four main contributions. First, we analyze the front-stage behavior of entrepreneurs through an information asymmetry framework and clarify the channels through which entrepreneurs' front-stage behavior impacts firm value. This not only enriches the literature on the economic consequences of entrepreneurs' front-stage behavior, but also expands the literature on we-media from the perspective of information disclosure and information transmission. Second, in the Internet era, the internal and external information environment of enterprises has changed in important ways. The modes of information collection and transmission must also change to match this evolving environment. Entrepreneurs need to re-examine the modes and channels of information disclosure. The findings of this study have important implications for entrepreneurs hoping to understand whether and how to make use of we-media. Third, the present literature on the impact of we-media on enterprises mainly focuses on enterprises' official microblogs. In contrast, we address entrepreneurs' personal microblogs, which is a more interesting perspective as they contain more diverse information about entrepreneurs. Understanding entrepreneurs' characteristics, viewpoints, and outlooks on life and the world is critical for helping investors to interpret or predict their strategies or decisions. Fourth, This study finds that entrepreneurs can directly or indirectly transmit information related to enterprise value via their personal microblogs, which is an efficient, fair, low-cost, and sustainable method that is also in line with the development concept of modern China.
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Received: 25 June 2019
Published: 02 June 2021
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