The degree of embeddedness of independent director network influences the governance behavior of independent directors,thereby impacting the tone of MD&A(Management Discussion and Analysis).Social network analysis methods are adopted to construct independent director net-works based on interlocking directorates of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2014 to 2021.Simultaneously,web scraping techniques is utilized to collect keywords related to"positive tone"and"negative tone"from annual reports to construct proxy variables for MD&A tone.The influ-ence of independent director network location on the tone of management discussion and analysis is studied.The results show that the better the position of the company's independent director net-work,the more positive MD&A tone,and the influence is mainly exerted by restraining manag-ers'short-sightedness.The heterogeneity test found that for the samples with lower management shareholding ratio,less analyst attention and less market competition,the position of independent director networks has a more significant positive impact on MD&A tone.The research findings not only enrich the understanding of independent director networks but also provide an opportunity to deeply understand MD&A tone from a social network perspective.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
