Marketing Investment Information: Differentiation Resource or Secret?

ABSTRACT Objective: drawing on voluntary disclosure theory, the paper’s main goal was to analyze the main effect of marketing intensity and the moderating role of life cycle on disclosure of marketing investments. Method: the sample includes 89 Brazilian companies listed on B3 stock exchange. We collected financial data from two sources, such as Economatica platform and in the explanatory notes and management report from the companies, which we coded through content analysis. We merged these two datasets and analyzed it using multiple linear regression. Results: both the marketing intensity and the life cycle of companies have effects on disclosure of marketing investments. In addition, the birth and growth phases moderate the main effect of marketing intensity, reducing the level of disclosure. This moderation is identified especially in disclosures of qualitative information. Conclusions: the findings support the voluntary disclosure theory based on arguments of judgment-based disclosure. Outcomes showed that when there is a high intensity of marketing investments, disclosure of marketing investments is managed by moving from the status of secrecy in companies in the birth and growth phases of life cycle to the status of differentiation resource in companies in the maturity phase of life cycle.