Title: Beyond Disclosure: Signaling Corporate Ties on Social Media

Speaker: Enshuai Yu, Assistant Professor, National University of Singapore

Time: 10:00-11:30, Oct 21st, 2026 (Wednesday)

Venue: Room 706, Mingde Business Building (Zhongguancun Campus)

Language: Chinese & English

ABSTRACT:

This study provides the first systematic evidence on the “social” (relational) dimension of social media. We present novel evidence that firms use peer tweets to signal economic ties with other firms. By analyzing firms that actively follow and share the developments of their peers on social media, we shed light on the following: the characteristics of firms engaging in corporate social signaling, whether such signals predict future strengthened economic ties, and how investors perceive such tweets. We find that peer tweeting is associated with economic relatedness, the demand for legitimacy, and litigation risk. These tweets predict future inter-firm collaborations, conveying information not readily available through traditional disclosure channels. Furthermore, peer tweets generate significantly positive market reactions for both the tweeting and tweeted firms. However, this corporate social signaling also has a downside: tweeting firms experience negative market reactions when the firms they have tweeted about subsequently release negative news. These findings highlight social media’s social dimension beyond its well-studied disclosure and dissemination roles.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY:

Enshuai Yu is a Presidential Young Professor and Assistant Professor of Accounting at NUS Business School, National University of Singapore. He is also a Research Affiliate at NUS Sustainable and Green Finance Institute. He earned his PhD in Accounting from Boston College in 2026, where he was a Deloitte Foundation Doctoral Fellow. He also holds an MS in Finance from the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and a BBA in Accounting and BS in Psychology from Peking University. He is a Certified Management Accountant (CMA). His research interests primarily lie in the intersection of accounting and inter-firm contracting, with a particular focus on supply chains and M&As. He is also interested in the real effects of regulation and taxes. His research has been presented at regulatory agencies (e.g., the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission), universities, and leading academic conferences, and has been published in top academic journals, including Journal of Accounting and Economics. His research has also been recognized with awards, including the American Accounting Association's Best Management Accounting Paper Award and Best Doctoral Paper Award, both for his dissertation.