The promise and challenges of new datasets for accounting research*
Siew Hong Teoh
I describe a brief summary of the development of databases used in accounting research and discuss the
research questions addressed in traditional databases and ‘new’ databases. The new data include online
searches such as Google Trends data; textual data from corporate disclosures, analyst reports, conference
call transcripts, earnings press releases, and news media articles; social network and social media data
from Twitter, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and other data. New data holds promise for research on attention or
cognitive processing constraints; on tone/valence, affect, deceptiveness and credibility for capital market
and financial reporting outcomes. I examine the econometric challenges of new data and suggest the
potential for new data to offer new auditing tools to detect poor financial reporting, which will help to
discourage earnings management.