Corporate Signal Coherence and Capital Market Valuation Under Strategic Information Asymmetry

Abstract

Corporate signals increasingly mediate how external audiences interpret firm quality, strategic intent, and organizational discipline. In markets where direct observation of capability is costly, investors, consumers, employees, and partners rely on visible cues embedded in disclosures, brand actions, product attributes, executive communication, and operational commitments. This paper examines whether corporate signals generate financial value when they are coherent across organizational domains rather than merely frequent. The analysis develops a panel framework in which signal intensity, specificity, consistency, and audience congruence jointly shape market valuation and operating resilience. Using an empirically calibrated firm-year panel of publicly traded firms from 2012 to 2023, the study combines fixed-effects econometrics, dynamic panel estimation, double machine learning, and latent factor modeling. The results indicate that signal coherence is positively associated with TQ, abnormal returns, revenue growth, and lower downside volatility. A one standard deviation increase in the corporate signal coherence index is associated with a 4.8% increase in Tobin's Q and a 2.1% increase in next-year revenue growth, conditional on firm fundamentals, industry trends, and prior performance. Signal intensity without coherence is weaker and sometimes negatively related to valuation. Machine-learning diagnostics show that governance credibility, customer-facing specificity, and employee-directed ethical consistency account for the largest incremental predictive gains. The evidence suggests that corporate signaling is most financially relevant when firms reduce interpretive ambiguity across audiences and when signal systems remain consistent with observable operating outcomes.