Abstract: Through a case study and employing difference-in-differences (DID) research method, this paper studies the impact of financial reporting fraud of Shanghai Electric, a state-owned enterprise (SOE), on the reputation of the industry peers of the focal firm. The empirical results show that the financial reporting fraud of Shanghai Electric tends to have a positive impact on the reputation of stateowned counterparts of the focal firm in the same industry, lending support to the notion of “reputation competition effect”. In addition, our findings suggest a greater reputation effect for firms with higher the quality of information disclosure. Further, the paper finds that firms with higher level of managerial self-interest tend to exhibit a weakened association between information disclosure quality and corporate reputation. Overall, this paper enriches the research in information disclosure by demonstrating the important role that a SOE’ s financial fraud can play in affecting the reputation of its peer firms. On this basis, the paper puts forward relevant policy suggestions for regulators and government functional departments, and provides theoretical support and experience reference for the supervision and governance of SOEs.

Key words: information disclosure quality, corporate reputation, executive self-interest