In particular, we study managers’ proprietary and agency cost motives to hide abnormal
segment profits, which we define as a segment’s rate of return relative to that of its industry.
Given the limited set of items that are disclosed in segment footnotes, we argue that segment
profitability is likely the most valuable piece of information managers might wish to withhold
from competitors and investors. Managers face proprietary costs of segment disclosure
if the revelation of a segment that earns high abnormal profits attracts more competition
and, hence, reduces the segment’s abnormal profits. On the other hand, managers face
agency costs of segment disclosure if the revelation of a segment that earns low abnormal
profits reveals unresolved agency problems and ultimately leads to heightened external
monitoring. We therefore hypothesize that managers tend to withhold the segments with
relatively high (low) abnormal segment profits when the proprietary (agency) cost motive
dominates (hereafter, the proprietary (agency) cost motive hypothesis).