Multinationality--Earnings, Efficiency, and Market Considerations

Book excerpt: The impact of multinationality on the operations of a firm is clear and strong. Riahi-Belkaoui shows how it affects the known relationships between earnings, efficiency, disclosure, and market valuation by its role as a dependent, moderating, intervening antecedant or consequent variable. Its impact can be felt, for example, in relationships and phenomena such as the timeliness and the informativeness of earnings, the underreaction of securities analysts, post-earnings announcement drifts, and the level and quality of disclosure. An understanding of multinationality in the earnings-disclosure-efficiency-market valuation relationship can also be used by accountants and researchers in their daily activities, and by corporate executives in multinational organizational decision making. The result is a useful, probing exploration for academics and practitioners alike.