A major concern with SFAS No. 14 was that discretion with respect to a segment’s
industry definition allowed managers to report more aggregated segment information to
external users than what was reported internally (Ernst & Young 1998). Prior studies (e.g.,
Street et al. 2000; Herrmann and Thomas 2000; Berger and Hann 2003) document a significant
increase in the number of reported segments at the time of SFAS No. 131 adoption.
One interpretation of this finding, and a maintained assumption of this study, is that the
new standard offers relatively less discretion for segment aggregation.9 This interpretation
of the increase in reported segments under SFAS No. 131 suggests that managers used the
discretion afforded under SFAS No. 14 to conceal segments that could have been separately
reported. The mandated segment reporting change therefore allows us to study managers’
disclosure decisions at the segment level by comparing the restated SFAS No. 131 segment
data with the historical SFAS No. 14 data for the lag adoption year.