Prior literature suggests that a focus on employee and customer relations alone improves financial performance. However, I find that a focus on employee and customer relations alone is not related to higher earnings persistence, but rather I hypothesize and find that the alignment of employee and customer relations with competitive strategy is related to higher earnings persistence. I further explore this relation by examining the contextual environment in which the firm operates. I consider the moderating variables of firm size, leverage, growth, and corporate governance and find that alignment impacts the persistence of earnings for leverage and governance but not for firm size or growth. I then examine the relation between a firms alignment and the markets reaction to the firms reported earnings. The analysis suggests that alignment is critical for cost leaders but is relatively less important for differentiators. Taken as a whole the findings suggest that firm alignment plays a role in earnings quality and is useful to investors in their interpretation of earnings.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-09032013-151841 |
| Date | 12 November 2013 |
| Creators | Hogan, Robert Stephen |
| Contributors | Chance, Donald, Tiras, Samuel, Soileau, Jared, Moffitt, Jacquelyn |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-09032013-151841/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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