Preferences for formal and informal sources in corporate finance

Although the work of corporate finance professionals is information intensive, their practices and choice of information sources have been very little researched. The aim of the present study is to examine the patterns of information source preferences of corporate finance professionals with a special focus on the respective roles of formal and informal sources of information and the implications of source preferences for the information work of professionals. The study is based on a web survey of 92 Finnish professionals working with corporate finance related duties in their organisations. The findings of the study reveal that corporate finance professionals use a wide array of information sources and have a strong preference for less formal and social sources of information even if they are not necessarily consulted on a daily basis. Major financial information and news providers are significant sources of primary data, but the success of corporate finance specialists lies more on their ability to combine formal information with informal cues and earlier experiences than on possessing or lacking a relevant piece of information.