The Impact of Corporate Governance Quality on Earnings Management: Evidence from European Companies Cross-listed in the US

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ujkan Bajra ◽  
Simon Cadez
2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hye Seung (Grace) Lee ◽  
Xu Li ◽  
Heibatollah Sami

SYNOPSIS In this study, we examine the impact of conditional conservatism on audit fees and, more importantly, the influence of corporate governance on this relationship. Prior literature presents evidence regarding explanations for the existence and pervasiveness of accounting conservatism such as compensation and debt contracting, shareholder litigation, taxation, and accounting regulation. However, there is very limited evidence or discussion of the potential benefit of accounting conservatism on audit risk and thus audit fees, and how the potential benefit can be attenuated by corporate governance quality. Using a sample of firm-year observations over the period of 2004–2009, we provide evidence consistent with conditional conservatism and firms' commitment to such conservatism reducing their audit fees. However, our evidence shows that this reduction in audit fees is moderated by higher corporate governance quality. These results have implications for auditors, regulators, standard setters, and firms' managers. In addition, our study extends the literature on the determinants of audit fees. JEL Classifications: M41; M42; D81; D22.


Author(s):  
Michael Klausner

This chapter examines the empirical literature on corporate law and governance in the United States. Four areas of the US corporate governance literature are discussed: (i) state competition to produce corporate law, (ii) independent boards, (iii) takeover defenses, and (iv) the use of corporate governance indices. The chapter concludes that these areas of research reflect varying degrees of success. The literature on state competition has been a major success. We know much more in this area as a result of empirical analysis in this area than we did on the basis of theory alone. At the other extreme is the literature on takeover defenses and the related literature that uses governance indices as measures of governance quality. Those empirical literatures are plagued by misunderstandings of how takeovers and takeover defenses work, and many results are therefore not as informative as they appear to be. In between is the literature on the impact of an independent board. Here, empiricists faced perhaps insurmountable challenges in proving causation, but nonetheless exposed informative associations.


2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (10) ◽  
pp. 2447-2461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madi Almadi ◽  
Philip Lazic

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of CEO incentive-based compensation on earnings management, taking into account the influence of institutional settings and corporate governance systems. Design/methodology/approach Using archival data of 3,000 British, Australian, German, and Austrian firm-years between 2005 and 2014, the study applies fixed-effect estimator to reduce risks of endogeneity bias. Findings The findings reveal that institutional factors influence the relationship between CEO incentive-based compensation and earnings management. Particularly, firms from countries within the Anglo-American model (the UK and Australia), which provide greater protection for investor, stricter legal enforcement, and higher quality of corporate governance, tend to have lower level of earnings management. However, besides corporate governance quality, it is relevant to consider weaker investor protection and legal enforcement to motivate earnings management in firms from countries within the Euro-Continental model (Germany and Austria). Originality/value The study suggests that robust implementation of corporate governance, derived from either model, helps in restraining CEO opportunistic behavior. Importantly, more qualified institutions have higher impact on the relative adequacy of CEO incentive-based pay formulas in mitigating earnings management concerns. This can be extended by future research through comparative studies using other contexts or influential institutions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 140
Author(s):  
Ayat S. Al-Rahahleh

<p class="1main-text">This study aims at examining the impact of corporate governance quality on cash conversion cycle (CCC) in Jordan. Using OLS regression for a sample of all industrial companies listed on Amman Stock Exchange during the period (2009-2013). The results revealed that CCC is affected negatively by corporate governance quality, which provides an implication to industrial companies in Jordan to boost their compliance with corporate governance code in order to improve their working capital management efficiency. Furthermore, the outcomes showed a variation in corporate governance categories between sub-samples, which supports contingency theory that rejects the approach of “one size fits all”. The findings provide implications for future studies to deal with firm characteristics as context dependent rather than simply as control variables. The results also provide implications for regulatory bodies in Jordan that highlight the importance of “comply or explain” approach to some corporate governance rules embracing the “one size does not fit all” approach. This study fills a gap in the existing literature by studying the quality of corporate governance and by using the context dependent approach.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed S. Alanazi

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of the characteristics of the board of directors on the quality of corporate governance. The paper attempts to uncover the board characteristics that contribute to better corporate governance quality. The paper exploits a unique dataset of the corporate governance index developed by the Corporate Governance Centre for the 92 largest Saudi listed firms for the fiscal year of 2015. Several board characteristics are regressed on the corporate governance scores to find an association. The size of the board of directors is positively associated with better corporate governance quality. In other words, large boards have better corporate governance. Furthermore, large block-holders and government ownership contribute significantly to better corporate governance quality. Contrary to expectations, independent members are negatively linked to corporate governance quality. Companies with a large number of independent members show lower corporate governance quality. Finally, other characteristics of board committees and boards meetings do not show links to corporate governance quality. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first paper to attempt to uncover the association between the characteristics of the board of directors and corporate governance quality in the Middle-East (the emerging market of Saudi Arabia). Several papers attempted to study governance issues in the Middle-East, but no direct examination of board characteristics and governance quality was conducted. Most studies investigated the issue of corporate governance and firm performance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Erol Muzir ◽  
Cevdet Kizil ◽  
Burak Ceylan

This paper aims to develop some static and conditional (dynamic) models to predict portfolio returns in the Borsa Istanbul (BIST) that are calibrated to combine the capital asset-pricing model (CAPM) and corporate governance quality. In our conditional model proposals, both the traditional CAPM (beta) coefficient and model constant are allowed to vary on a binary basis with any degradation or improvement in the country’s international trade competitiveness, and meanwhile a new variable is added to the models to represent the portfolio’s sensitivity to excess returns on the governance portfolio (BIST Governance) over the market. Some robust and Bayesian linear models have been derived using the monthly capital gains between December 2009 and December 2019 of four leading index portfolios. A crude measure is then introduced that we think can be used in assessing governance quality of portfolios. This is called governance quality score (GQS). Our robust regression findings suggest both superiority of conditional models assuming varying beta coefficients over static model proposals and significant impact of corporate governance quality on portfolio returns. The Bayesian model proposals, however, exhibited robust findings that favor the static model with fixed beta estimates and were lacking in supporting significance of corporate governance quality.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Adel Elzahaby

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to propose an analytical model that investigates both a direct path between corporate governance quality and earnings quality and an indirect path, in which firms' performance is a mediating variable that is influenced by corporate governance quality and that, in turn, influences earnings quality.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs a structural equation modelling (SEM), to a sample of Egyptian listed firms during 2011–2017, to test the proposed analytical model and to determine the relative importance of both the direct and indirect paths.FindingsThe findings show a statistically significant evidence of both a direct path from corporate governance quality to earnings quality, and an indirect path that is mediated by firms' performance, suggesting that both corporate governance quality and performance have a complementary effect on earnings quality. However, the weight of the evidence favouring the direct path is more important in case of accounting-based performance measures; and the weight of the evidence favouring the indirect path is more important in case of market-based performance measures.Research limitations/implicationsThe current study has some limitations. First, the study focuses specifically on one proxy for measuring earnings quality which is the absolute value of discretionary accruals. Other proxies of earnings quality could be examined in future research, such as income smoothing, earnings persistence and timely loss recognition. Another limitation is that only financial performance measures were examined, namely, return on assets, return on equity, price-to-earnings ratio and market-to-book value. Notwithstanding, non-financial performance measures could be investigated in future studies, such as balanced scorecard (BSC). Furthermore, considering cultural, political and legislative differences among countries, the results may not be generalised outside the scope of the current sample (i.e. Egyptian listed firms).Practical implicationsThe implications of the findings for both theory and practice are discussed.Originality/valueThis study is distinguished by validating an analytical model that has been overlooked by prior studies. Moreover, it provides a new constructed index for measuring corporate governance quality. Furthermore, it uses a new sophisticated statistical technique, which is SEM, for testing the proposed model.


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