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The authors investigate whether abnormal tone in corporate narrative disclosures is associated with earnings management and earnings quality, in an emerging market context. Based on agency theory and opportunistic/impression management perspective, this study examines whether executives manage disclosure tone to support their opportunistic behavior, when using earnings management.

This study uses a sample of earnings press releases of publicly traded firms in the MENA region during 2014–2019. It employs textual analysis to measure disclosure tone. The authors estimate abnormal disclosure tone after controlling for firm characteristics. Discretionary accruals proxy for earnings management and are estimated using Modified Jones model. Earnings quality is measured using accounting-based and market-based proxies: earnings smoothness, persistence, predictability and value relevance/informativeness.

Results show a positive association between abnormal disclosure tone and earnings management. Additionally, results show that earnings persistence is higher for firms with lower levels of abnormal disclosure tone. Results are sustained for earnings smoothness, but not for predictability and value relevance/informativeness.

Results provide initial evidence of management's use of tone management jointly with earnings management. This adds to prior studies adopting the opportunistic perspective of disclosure tone, through showing that discretionary tone in narrative disclosures can be strategically used by management to influence investors' perceptions.

The results provide valuable insight to board of directors, auditors and market participants on the possible biases emerging from tone of narrative disclosures in corporate reports. For regulators and standard-setters, results shed light on the need for regulations and rules beyond financial statements, to guide disclosure of narrative information in different corporate reports.

This study contributes to the rare evidence that investigates textual disclosure characteristics to uncover management's opportunistic practices and assess earnings quality. Where majority of studies concentrate on developed markets, this study provides novel evidence of emerging markets by examining the association between abnormal disclosure tone and earnings management/earnings quality. Also, it validates the tone management model proposed by Huang et al. (2014) for capturing tone manipulation.

This study examines whether manipulation in attributes of corporate narrative disclosures and the use of graphical representations can bias non-professional investors' judgment towards firms' future performance, in an emerging market context.

The authors conduct three different experiments with a 2 × 2 between-subjects design, using accounting and finance senior undergraduate students to proxy for the non-professional investors.

Results show that simple (more readable) disclosures improve non-professional investors' judgment towards firms' future performance. In addition, it is found that non-professional investors are prone to a recency effect from the intentional ordering of narrative information, when using complex (less readable) narratives. However, no primacy effect is found, when using simple (more readable) disclosures. The results further provide evidence that the inclusion of graphical representations, along with the manipulated narrative disclosures, can moderate the recency effect of information order, when using less readable and complex narrative disclosures.

The results reveal that although the content of corporate disclosures can be objective, neutral and relevant, manipulation in textual features and the use of graphical presentations, can interact to impact how non-professional investors perceive and process the disclosed information. This study provides an Egyptian evidence regarding this issue, as the majority of prior studies concentrate on developed capital markets. In addition, it contributes to prior studies evaluating the appropriateness of the Belief Adjustment Model predictions about the effect of textual presentation order on decision-making, by providing evidence from an emerging market.

Results attempt to increase the awareness of investors and encourage them to use multiple sources of information to avoid the probable bias that can result from management's manipulation of narratives. In addition, the study could be of interest to regulators and standard-setters, where the results reveal the need for guidelines and regulations to guide the disclosure of narrative information and the use of graphical information in corporate reports.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine the effect of two impression management strategies in narrative disclosures (readability and information order), along with the use of graphical representations, on non-professional investors' judgment in an emerging market, like Egypt.

The present research aims to explore the relationship between the university's new identity and its architectural design, and to investigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on this model. It also aims to analyze the declared identity of the new Egyptian universities.

To formulate the hypothesis of the relational model, the research started with the literature related to physical and nonphysical variables of university's identity (organizational and visual identity) and the impact of the pandemic on its identity. Secondly, an online questionnaire targeting academic leaders was conducted to identify the relative importance of the selected variables of university's identity pre- and post-pandemic. Thirdly, a content analysis of the new Egyptian universities' identity was used to track the correlation between the selected variables based on information accessible on universities' websites. Finally, the results of the content analysis and the questionnaire were compared to test the hypothesis.

The study reveals the most important physical variable of university's new identity pre- and post-pandemic is technological infrastructure and flexible design, while the least important is university's unique design. The results highlight that the universities need to revisit the declared identity to reflect the new challenges posed by COVID-19.

This study is considered one of the first researches that links the physical and nonphysical variables of university's new identity. The current study contributes to analyzing the impact of COVID-19 on university identity and architecture.