Reported and communicated shifts in strategic emphasis and firm performance

In light of scarce resources, firms strategically weigh off between investments in value creation and value appropriation. They do so by placing more emphasis on one of the two strategic orientations which defines their strategic emphasis. So far, literature has relied on accounting data – specifically on reported investments in R&D and advertising – to operationalize reported strategic emphasis and studied its association with a firm’s financial performance. Previous studies suggest that firms benefit from emphasizing value appropriation. However, we show that the association between shifts in reported strategic emphasis and stock returns has actually changed over time. These days, the stock market wants firms to balance their strategic orientation. Moreover, this study not only takes a firm’s reported strategic emphasis into account but also considers what firms communicate about their strategic orientation. The study infers communicated strategic emphasis from a firm’s ‘Management Discussion & Analysis’ (MD&A) section of its Form 10-K filings. The authors develop a special purpose dictionary and show that what firms say about their strategic emphasis matters to investors in addition to what they report. The authors further discuss differences in the relevance of shifts in strategic emphasis across industries. Especially, the distinction between reported and communicated shifts in strategic emphasis provides novel managerial insights and avenues for future marketing strategy research.