scholarly journals Does Board Characteristics Constrain Real Earnings Management? Evidence From Korea

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 1251-1262
Author(s):  
Hyun Min Oh ◽  
Heung Joo Jeon

This study empirically analyzes the effect of board characteristics on real earnings management, which is measured by using three proxies including abnormal cash flows from operations, abnormal discretionary expenses, and abnormal production costs. Specifically, we will investigate how board independence (or board size) affects real earnings management. Additionally, we will investigate the relation between the board characteristics and real earnings management according to before K-IFRS mandatory adoption or after K-IFRS mandatory adoption. The empirical results of this study are as follows. First, the relation between board independence (board size) and the absolute value of abnormal cash flows from operations is statistically significant and positive (+). Second, the relation between board independence (board size) and the absolute value of abnormal production costs is statistically significant and positive (+). Third, the relation between board independence (board size) and the absolute value of abnormal discretionary expenses is statistically significant and positive (+). These findings present that the board independence (or board size) does not constrain real earnings management. Thus, these mean that board independence (or board size) does not work as a mechanism to reduce real earnings management. This study contributes to accounting research as it directly tests the relation between the board characteristics and real earnings management in Korea, providing empirical support that a board independence (board size) does not constrain real earnings management as effectively as it constrains accrual earnings management. 

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-120
Author(s):  
Koerniawan Dwi Wibawa ◽  
Bambang Subroto ◽  
Wuryan Andyani

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of the level financial statement disclosure on earnings management and audit quality in moderating this study. The sample of this study was from LQ45 companies, especially in manufacturing as many as 9 companies with an observation period of 5 years (2012-2016). This study provided empirical evidence that a negative influence between the level of disclosure of financial statements and real earnings management used production costs. But with the proxies of operational cash flow and discretionary costs produce provided a positive relationship. The results of the moderation regression test with production costs as proxy of earnings management provided that audit quality can strengthen the negative effect of the financial disclosure level on earnings management. Other results indicate that audit quality can strengthen the positive influence of the financial disclosure level on earnings management with a proxy for operational cash flows and discretionary costs. The Managerial implications of research was that auditors can examine other factors besides operational cash flow and discretionary costs in carrying out judgment on earnings management practices in the company.  


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-219
Author(s):  
Yongtae Kim

ABSTRACT Guo, Huang, Zhang, and Zhou (2015) examine whether foreign investors encourage or limit real earnings management in Japanese firms. They find that firms with higher foreign ownership engage less in real earnings management than other firms as evidenced by higher abnormal cash flows from operations, lower abnormal production costs, and higher abnormal discretionary expenses. While the results suggest that foreign ownership and real earnings management in Japanese firms are negatively correlated, it remains unclear whether foreign investors improve the corporate governance of firms and thus limit real earnings management or that they are attracted to firms that have better governance and more transparent earnings. One fruitful avenue for future research is to examine whether the negative relation between foreign ownership and financial reporting quality reflects monitoring by foreign investors or selection.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aikaterini C. Ferentinou ◽  
Seraina C. Anagnostopoulou

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the use of accrual-based vs real earnings management (EM) by Greek firms, before and after the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The research is motivated by the fact that past studies have indicated the existence of significant levels of EM for Greece in particular before IFRS. Design/methodology/approach – Accrual-based earnings management (AEM) is examined by assessing performance-adjusted discretionary accruals, while real earnings management (REM) is defined in terms of abnormal levels of production costs, discretionary expenses, and cash flows from operations, for a three-year period before and after the adoption of IFRS in 2005. Findings – The authors find evidence on a statistically significant shift from AEM to REM after the adoption of IFRS, indicating the replacement of one form of EM with the other. Research limitations/implications – The validity of the results depends on the ability of the empirical models used to efficiently capture the existence of AEM and REM. Practical implications – IFRS adoption aims to improve accounting quality, especially in countries with high need for such an improvement; however, the tendency to substitute one form of EM with another highlights unintended consequences of IFRS adoption, which do not improve the informational content of financial statements if EM continues under different forms. Originality/value – Under the expectation that IFRS adoption should lead to improvements in accounting quality, this study examines whether IFRS actually led to a reduction of EM practices for a country with exceptionally high levels of EM before IFRS, by accounting for all possible forms of EM.


2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry Sun ◽  
George Lan ◽  
Guoping Liu

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of independent audit committees in constraining real earnings management. This study examines the relationships between audit committee characteristics and real activities manipulation. Design/methodology/approach – US firms with stronger incentives to undertake real earnings management are selected as a sample. Regressions are run for the empirical analyses. Findings – It is found that audit committee members' additional directorships are positively associated with real earnings management measured by abnormal cash flows from operations, abnormal discretionary expenses and abnormal production costs, suggesting that audit committees with high additional directorships are less effective in constraining real earnings management. The findings are consistent with the notion that audit committee members' busyness impairs their monitoring effectiveness. Originality/value – This study extends the extant research on audit committees' oversight of real earnings management by using refined research design and updated data. This study also provides further evidence on how audit committee members' additional directorships affect their ability to oversee both accrual and real earnings management.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ye Liu ◽  
Changjiang Lyu

Purpose The performance of the first batch of listed companies since the restart of new initial public offerings (IPOs) in January 2014 and their accounting information face repeated and volatile questioning from different sides. This paper aims to take Guirenniao (China) Co. Ltd. (GRN for short), one of the first batch of listed companies in 2014 that suffered performance decline, as an example to analyze how it managed earnings before IPO. Design/methodology/approach This paper examines earnings management signs that exist in GRN through analysis of its financial statements compared to those of its industry peers. This paper then uses the modified Jones model to detect its accrual earnings management and build three models, which are abnormal levels of cash flows from operations, abnormal production costs and abnormal discretionary expenses, to detect real earnings management. Findings This paper finds that GRN managed earnings through accrual and real activities in 2012 and 2013. Finally, this paper provides evidence on the specific methods of earnings management, which are easing credit policy to recognize revenue in advance, abnormal expansion, decreasing costs and connected transactions. Originality/value This paper examines earnings management signs exist in GRN through analysis of its financial statements comparing to those of its industry peers. This paper then uses the modified Jones Model to detect its accrual earnings management and build three models which are abnormal levels of cash flows from operations, abnormal production costs and abnormal discretionary expenses to detect real earnings management.


Author(s):  
Mohamed Hessian

This study aims to investigate the managerial ability of executives’ managers’ role on mitigating the negative impact of real earnings management on future firm’s performance. The researcher operationalizes managerial ability by using a measure developed by Demerjian, Lev, and McVay (2012). This measure captures managers’ ability to efficiently convert firm resources into sales revenue relative to their industry peers. In other words, higher-ability managers are more likely to generate more sales revenue for a given set of resources compared to lower-ability managers. The researcher follows Roychowdhury (2006) and Kothari et al. (2016) to calculate abnormal sales, abnormal production costs, and abnormal discretionary expenses. To capture the total effects of three REM methods an aggregate REM that is a proxy for real earnings activities was used. Following Gunny (2010) and Huang & Sun (2017) future performance proxies are ROA and operating cash flows to total assets (CFO) for the next three years each year. Using a panel sample of 605 firm-year observations from 2005 to 2015. The study concluded that there is a positive significant relationship between the managerial ability of managers and earnings management through manipulating of real operational activities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanen Khaireddine ◽  
Bassem Salhi ◽  
Jabr Aljabr ◽  
Anis Jarboui

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate how board characteristics impact the governance, environmental and ethics disclosure. Board characteristics such as board size, gender diversity, board independence, CEO/chair duality and board meeting are included. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on a sample of 82 companies listed in the SBF120 between 2012 and 2017. A number of econometric techniques are used such as generalized least squares to test the panel regressions. Findings Board independence, board gender diversity and board meetings have a positive and significant influence on governance, environmental and ethics disclosure. Board size is positively and significantly associated only with corporate environmental disclosure. The adoption of Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI, G4) has not affected or biased the corporate governance (CG), environmental and ethics disclosure. Originality/value This study adds to the literature on management reporting behavior and ethics and contributes to the extant CG literature by offering new evidence on the disclosure of good CG practices as well as environmental and ethics behavior. This study offers new insights about the potential influence of board characteristics on such specific disclosure practices focusing “during the optional period of GRI4 and after their mandatory adoption”.


Equilibrium ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 661-677
Author(s):  
Tomasz Sosnowski

Research background: An initial public offering (IPO) creates an excellent opportunity to research the impact of changes in the institutional environment of companies on the trustworthiness of the information disclosed in financial statements. Purpose of the article: The main aim of the study is to analyze the use of accrual and real earnings management to inflate earnings, revenue, or total assets around the going public event. Therefore, this paper contributes to the stream of study on the quality of financial reporting of new stock companies. Methods: Two main approaches reflect the use of various types of earnings management activities, i.e., discretionary accruals and real earnings management. In both cases, it was necessary to use proper OLS method estimated models to identify the normal level of categories that affect the results reported in financial statements. Findings & value added: Based on a sample of 183 IPOs from the Warsaw Stock Exchange between 2005 and 2015, generally, managers of newly-listed companies actively use discretionary accruals, reduce production costs and certain discretionary expenses, and abnormal cash flows from operations ? i.e., all proxies of earnings management used in the paper ? in the periods around the IPO. In the period prior to the IPO, managers more often introduce techniques typical of the real sphere of the company's operations, in particular, the deliberate modeling of certain discretionary costs. In turn, the use of discretionary accruals dominates in the year after the IPO.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 268
Author(s):  
Adegbola Otekunrin ◽  
Tony Nwanji ◽  
Damilola Fagboro ◽  
Johnson Olowookere ◽  
Stella Ibitoye

With the rise of corporate failures and the conflict of interest arising from shareholders and the management, there have been growing concerns in corporate governance (CG). It is there is ponsibility of the board of director in CG is to oversee the management as well as the firm performance and to make the management accountable to shareholders. Hence this research examines the connection between firms’ performance and board features using board size, board independence in addition to board age as a proxy for board characteristics and turnover as a proxy for firm performance. A sample size of 16 consumer goods firms out of a population of 20 consumer goods firms listed in the NSE from 2016 to 2019 was used using a judgmental sampling technique. Secondary data employed was taken out from the sampled firms’ annual reports. Hausman test analysis was used to select the appropriate regression model, which is the fixed effect regression model that was utilized to analyse the connection between firms’ performance in addition to board characteristics. It is found that firm performance and board independence of the consumer services goods companies in Nigeria are significantly related.The results also confirmed that firm performance and board size of the consumer services goods companies in Nigeria are significantly related. The result indicates firm performance and board education of the consumer services goods companies in Nigeria are not significantly related. Consequently, overall lthe study concluded that firms’ performance and board characteristics are related. Also, board characteristics increase board performance which will lead to increase in firms’ performances, there by maximizing profit and ensuring efficiency. The study concluded that a company with good board characteristics would help to ensure the maximization of both the shareholders and stakeholders wealth. Hence a proper board characteristic helps to solve the problem of both agency theory and stakeholders’ theory.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Zubaedy Sy ◽  
Nuryati Nuryati ◽  
Surifah Surifah

 The main objective of this research is to create good corporate governance that is able to restrictopportunistic REM. The specific objectives of this study are 1) to provide evidence of difference inthe practices of CG and REM in Indonesian and Malaysian Islamic banks,and 2) to provide empirical evidence of the influence of CG on the REM of Indonesian and Malaysian Islamic banks.           The study was conducted on Indonesian and Malaysian Islamic banks from 2011 to 2016by using purposive samplingmethod. The research data is secondary data in the form of annual reports and financial reports originating from the Indonesian Banking Directory, the Indonesia Stock Exchange and the Malaysia Stock Exchange. The analysis method used to test the differences between CG and real earnings management is the Man Whitney test whilethe method used to test the effect of CG on the REM of Islamic Banks in Indonesia and Malaysia is the multiple regression analysiswithordinary least square.            The results show that the practices of corporate governance in Indonesia and Malaysia have their own strengths and weaknesses. CG mechanism of Indonesia and Malaysia shows lower level in some parts and higher level in other parts. Malaysia’s REM islower than Indonesia’sREM through operating cash flow, investment profit sharing, and discretionary costs. The experimental results show that CG generally does not affect real earnings management and only the independent audit committee who is able to restrictreal earnings management through operating cash flows.            Riset ini  menguji  hubungan antara corporate governance (CG) dan manajemen laba berdasar aktivitas riil  atau disebut real earnings management (REM) bank-bank Islam  di Indonesia dan Malaysia. Tujuan jangka panjang riset ini adalah terciptanya good corporate governace yang mampu membatasi REM oportunistik. Target khusus penelitian ini adalah 1) memberi bukti empiris perbedaan praktik CG dan REM bank Islam  Indonesia dan Malaysia. 2) memberi bukti empiris pengaruh CG terhadap REM bank Islam  Indonesia dan Malaysia.             Metode penelitian menggunakan metode ilmiah - kuantitatif, dengan membangun satu atau lebih hipotesis berdasarkan pada suatu struktur  atau kerangka teori dan kemudian menguji hipotesis-hipotesis tersebut secara empiris. Penelitian dilakukan pada bank Islam  Indonesia dan Malaysia periode waktu 2011 sampai 2016. Metode pengambilan sampel secara purposive sampling. Data penelitian merupakan data sekunder berupa  annual report dan laporan keuangan yang berasal dari Directory Perbankan Indonesia, Bursa Efek Indonesia  dan Bursa Efek Malaysia.  Teknik analisis untuk menguji perbedaan CG dan manajemen laba riil adalah uji beda Man Whitney, sedangkan untuk menguji pengaruh CG terhadap REM Bank Islam  Indonesia dan Malaysia menggunakan analisis regresi berganda ordinary least square.            Hasil menunjukkan bahwa praktik corporate governance Negara Indonesia dan Malaysia, masing masing memiliki kelebihan dan kelemahan. Mekanisme CG ada yang lebih rendah, maupun lebih tinggi antara Negara Indonesia dengan Malaysia. REM Malaysia lebih rendah signifikan dari pada Indonesia, baik melalui arus kas operasi, bagi hasil investasi, maupun biaya diskresioner. Hasil uji menunjukkan bahwa pada umumnya mekanisme CG tidak berpengaruh terhadap manajemen laba riil. Hanya Independensi komite audit yang mampu menekan manajemen laba riil melalui arus kas operasi.Keywords:Corporate governance, real earnings management, Islamic banking.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document