Toward improved use of value creation measures in financial decision-making

Abstract

In the last two decades, numerous studies have been conducted to find sources and explanations for value creation and the value drivers of share returns or shareholder value creation by firms. This study aimed to determine whether more refined firm categorization and an increase in the number of variables analyzed would yield more robust information on value creation measures that financial decision-makers can use. Four different categories of firms were compiled. For each category, 11 different internal performance measures were regressed against two different external shareholder value creation measures. The empirical results show that different value creation measures explain shareholder value creation best for different categories of firms. Economic-based indicators provide higher information content than accounting-based indicators for financial decision-making. The information content of internal value drivers varied when different external shareholder value indicators were used. This study provides financial decisionmakers with a more specific indication of the use of shareholder value creation measures for specific firm types.