The Effect of Intangible Asset Classification on Professional Financial Statement Users’ Assessments
研究了将项目分类到某一类别如何影响用户对该类别本身及其他成员的看法，发现无形资产等类别更易受分类效应影响，可能导致资产负债表分类对使用者产生意外后果。
ABSTRACT Classification of financial statement elements into categories is an inherent, integral part of the financial reporting system. Although prior research documents that categories influence users’ perceptions of included items, we explore the reverse effect—how classifying items in a category can impact perceptions of the category itself and its other members. Using categorization theory from psychology and accounting literature and exploiting the classification challenges inherent to the crypto asset setting, we predict and find that classifying individual items into a category can impact equity analysts’ perceptions of the category itself and perceptions of the category's other members. We also explore the boundaries of this effect and find that categories like intangibles, with fewer common prototypical features, are more susceptible to these classification effects. Our results show several ways in which balance sheet classification could lead to unintended consequences for users.