We investigate how managers use private channels to adjust analysts’ forecasts, based on a unique dataset of firms’ private in-house meetings in China. For firms facing strong expectation management incentives, we find that compared to analysts who do not attend their private meetings, those who attend produce steeper forecast walkdowns, suggesting that managers with such incentives opportunistically exploit private interactions to dampen analysts’ forecasts. Moreover, this private guidance is more effective if the meeting attendees include both mutual funds and analysts or if meetings occur after the current fiscal year-end. Further analyses indicate that analysts’ incentives to gain better access to management information and secure underwriting business induce their cooperative behaviour. We further identify unique roles of private versus public guidance in managing expectations. Overall, we depict a dynamic and interactive process of private guidance.
The reference for this article can be found below:
Hu, J., & Li, T. (2025). Expectation management through private interactions: evidence from in-house meetings. European Accounting Review, 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638180.2025.2593373
