Emerging Trends in Capital Market Communication: A Systematic Review

This paper systematically reviews the existing literature on the impact of emerging trends, particularly social media, on capital market communication. It presents the current state of research and identifies differences among evolutionary stages. Following a comprehensive database search, we examined 84 peer-reviewed journal articles published over the past 20 years and categorized them into four thematic clusters. The findings reveal that public companies must strategically adopt new communication channels to address increasing stakeholder empowerment, and corresponding information demands to maintain communicative relevance on the capital market. Enhanced collaboration among accounting, investor and public relations, and marketing functions highlights the growing need for cross-disciplinarity. Limited research exists on the impact of new information intermediaries of the financial community and social media sub-trends on capital market communication. To address these gaps, we introduce a framework of strategic capital market communication that extends beyond traditional corporate reporting and investor relations practices to address a broader range of stakeholders. This study provides valuable insights and practical implications for communication and accounting scholars, as well as investor relations and corporate communication practitioners, who are seeking to navigate the emerging trends in strategic capital market communication.