Dynamics of CEO Disclosure Style

We examine changes in CEOs' disclosure styles in quarterly earnings conference calls over their tenure. Our longitudinal analysis of newly hired CEOs shows that CEOs' forward-looking disclosures and their disclosures' relative optimism decline in their tenure. Further, externally hired and inexperienced CEOs are more future-oriented, and younger CEOs exhibit greater optimism in their disclosures. We also find that non-CEO executives' disclosure styles remain time-invariant over their CEOs' tenure. Our evidence is consistent with uncertainty reduction about managers' ability over their tenure (1) reducing the demand for and the supply of forward-looking disclosures, and (2) attenuating managerial career concerns leading to the decline in disclosure optimism.