Marketing scholars have extensively studied marketing’s effect on firm value and developed metrics and dashboards to help establish marketing accountability. However, empirical evidence of marketing accountability’s specific outcomes is scarce and mainly derived from surveys. It also lacks consideration of outcomes beyond the marketing function’s standing in the firm, thus overlooking possible downsides and outcomes with regard to external stakeholders such as investors. Using a natural experiment — Australia’s change from a non-restrictive to a restrictive accounting regime — this study investigates how accountability for the financial value of marketing assets (marketing asset accountability) affects a firm’s marketing management focus on short-term vis-à-vis long-term marketing efficiency, its cost of capital, and the degree to which its stock price reflects actual future performance (i.e., stock price informativeness). The results show that marketing asset accountability improves long-term marketing efficiency, reduces cost of equity, and improves stock price informativeness, but does not consistently affect short-term marketing efficiency and cost of debt. Moreover, although marketing-intensive firms are commonly assumed to benefit most from marketing asset accountability, this is not the case. These results have implications for researchers, managers, and public policy decision-makers.

中文翻译：

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EXPRESS：营销资产责任的后果——一个自然的实验

营销学者广泛研究了营销对公司价值的影响，并开发了指标和仪表板来帮助建立营销责任。然而，营销责任具体结果的经验证据很少，而且主要来自调查。它还缺乏对营销职能在公司中地位之外的结果的考虑，从而忽视了投资者等外部利益相关者可能出现的负面影响和结果。本研究利用自然实验——澳大利亚从非限制性会计制度向限制性会计制度的转变——调查了营销资产财务价值的责任（营销资产责任）如何影响公司对短期营销管理的关注。长期营销效率、资金成本以及股价反映未来实际业绩的程度（即股价信息量）。结果表明，营销资产问责制提高了长期营销效率，降低了股本成本，并提高了股价信息量，但并不持续影响短期营销效率和债务成本。此外，尽管人们普遍认为营销密集型企业从营销资产责任中获益最多，但事实并非如此。这些结果对研究人员、管理者和公共政策决策者具有重要意义。