Audit Committee Financial Expertise and Earnings Management: The Role of Status

Author(s):  
Patrick Badolato ◽  
Dain C. Donelson ◽  
Matthew Ege
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-44
Author(s):  
Collins Kapkiyai ◽  
Josephat Cheboi ◽  
Joyce Komen

Objective: The paper sought to investigate the role of an effective audit committee in controlling earnings management practices. Design / Methodology: A panel data sourced from the audited financial reports of firms listed at the Kenyan Nairobi Securities Exchange for the periods between 2004 and 2017 were analyzed using a panel regression model. Findings: Audit committee effectiveness proved an important monitoring mechanism for earnings management. The independence, Meeting frequency, and financial expertise of the audit committee evidenced a negative and significant effect on earnings management. Practical Implications: Firms need to ensure that their audit committees operate effectively. This is achieved through enhancing their independence, ensuring optimal meeting frequency, and a higher number of members with financial expertise for fewer earnings management. Originality: The paper suggests the ways through which audit committee effectiveness can be enhanced to reduce earnings management amid rampant global financial scandals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-92
Author(s):  
Ahmad Haruna Abubakar ◽  
Abubakar Usman ◽  
Peter U Anuforo ◽  
Baba Yagana Alhaji

This study extends existing research on the real earnings management by examining the impacts of audit committee attributes on real earnings management in Nigeria. The analyses involve a sample of 72 non-financial firms with 360 firm-year observations for a five-year period (2014-2018). Data was obtained from the annual reports of these companies as well as from Thompson Reuters and Bloomberg databases. The Panel Corrected Standard Error was used to test the model studied. The finding shows that audit committee size prevent managers’ activities in earnings manipulations. Also, the result establish that the audit committee independence presence on the audit committee control managers’ opportunistic behaviour while audit committee financial expertise were monitors in curtailing earnings manipulation practice.  The findings shall give insight to financial analysts, investors, and regulators on the importance of AC in enhancing the quality of the financial report, also show the role of the audit committee characteristics to deter real earnings manipulations. Keywords: audit committee, size, independence, expertise, earnings management


Author(s):  
Fahad Al Naim ◽  
Thamir Al Barrak

This study aims to measure the impact that audit committees have on earnings management for companies listed on Tadawul Stock Exchange. The sample includes firms in the basic materials sector for the years 2017 and 2018. The modified Jones model is used to investigate the impact of audit committee characteristics (independence, financial expertise, size, number of meetings, and percentage of shares owned) on earnings management. The results show that the greater the audit committee’s independence, percentage of shares owned, and number of meetings held contribute to limited earnings management. However, no evidence is found to support that financial experience or audit committee size have an impact on earnings management.


2014 ◽  
Vol 58 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 208-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick G. Badolato ◽  
Dain C. Donelson ◽  
Matthew Ege

2020 ◽  
pp. 097215092093406
Author(s):  
Ahmad A. Toumeh ◽  
Sofri Yahya ◽  
Azlan Amran

Management engages in earnings manipulation for different reasons. This article argues that low-growth firms with high free cash flow will opt for income-increasing earnings management in order to obscure the low profits derived from their investments in negative net present value (NPV) projects. On the other hand, we argue that the listed companies might be interested in being listed in the first market due to its privileges and to preserve the competitiveness, through managing their earnings upwardly, so that they can satisfy the condition of achieving a particular earnings limit. This article should advance the body of earnings management literature in the Jordanian context by examining the effect of the moderating role of an independent audit committee (IAC) in the association between surplus free cash flow (SFCF) and income-increasing discretionary accruals (DAC). Further, this is the initial empirical attempt to investigate the moderation effect of IAC between stock market segmentations (SMS) and positive DAC. The results of this current study offer original and beneficial information for the Jordanian government and other countries with a similar institutional environment because the study promotes the application of applying IAC as an efficient tool to constrain management behaviour towards manipulation of the accruals. On top of that, this research offers information concerning the prevailing situation of earnings management practices and corporate governance in Jordan, in which shareholders, local and international investors, policymakers, regulators and academic researchers are interested. Finally, panel data analyses and various statistical techniques are employed to derive conclusions.


2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurul Nazlia Jamil ◽  
Sherliza Puat Nelson

Financial reporting quality has been under scrutiny especially after the collapse of major companies. The main objective of this study is to investigate the audit committee’s effectiveness on the financial reporting quality among the Malaysian GLCs following the transformation program. In particular, the study examined the impact of audit committee characteristics (independence, size, frequency of meeting and financial expertise) on earnings management in periods prior to and following the transformation program (2003-2009). As of 31 December 2010, there were 33 public-listed companies categorized as Government-Linked Companies (GLC Transformation Policy, 2010) and there were 20 firms that have complete data that resulted in the total number of firm-year observations to 120 for six years (years 2003-2009).  Results show that the magnitude of earnings management as proxy of financial reporting quality is influenced by the audit committee independence. Agency theory was applied to explain audit committee, as a monitoring mechanism as well as reducing agency costs via gaining competitive advantage in knowledge, skills, and expertise towards financial reporting quality. The study is important as it provides additional knowledge about the impact of audit committees effectiveness on reducing the earnings management, and assist practitioners, policymakers and regulators such as Malaysian Institute of Accountants, Securities Commission and government to determine ways to enhance audit committees effectiveness and improve the financial reporting of GLCs, as well as improving the quality of the accounting profession.     


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Deepa Mangala ◽  
Neha Singla ◽  
Neha Singla

Purpose This study aims to investigate the role of corporate governance practices in restraining earnings management in Indian commercial banks. Design/methodology/approach Estimation of earnings management is based on discretionary loan loss provision and discretionary realised security gains and losses using Beatty et al. (2002) model. The effect of corporate governance on earnings management is examined by performing two-way least square dummy variable regression. Data for a period of five years (2016–2020) is collected from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy ProwessIQ database, Reserve Bank of India website, annual report of banks, National Stock Exchange and bank’s website. Findings Regression results exhibit that number of board committees, size and independence of audit committee and joint audit are significantly effective in curbing earnings management. Other board-related variables (size, independence, meetings and diligence) and audit committee variables (meetings and diligence) are not effective in restraining earnings management in Indian banks. Practical implications The findings may prove to be helpful to regulators, board of directors and investors. It shows the weak area of corporate governance in India that is lack of autonomy to independent directors, which needs regulators attention and it also suggests that the number of independent auditors should be adequate for audit purposes. The board of directors must ensure the formulation of an adequate number of committees, which perform their own super specialised functions. This study brings an alarm to investors not to rely on reported earnings alone as they may be manipulated. Originality/value This paper substantiates the scant literature on the role of corporate governance practices in restraining earnings management in banks of emerging markets and to the best of the authors’ knowledge impact of joint audits on earnings management is previously unexplored in Indian banks, which are examined in this study.


2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Taha Almarayeh ◽  
Modar Abdullatif ◽  
Beatriz Aibar-Guzmán

PurposeThis study examines the relationship between audit committees (ACs) and earnings management (EM) in the developing country context of Jordan. In particular, it investigates whether audit committee attributes, including their size, independence, expertise and meetings, are able to restrict discretionary accruals as a proxy for EM.Design/methodology/approachThe generalized least square (GLS) regression was used to study the association between audit committee attributes and discretionary accruals, as a proxy of EM, for a sample of industrial firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) during the period 2012–2020. Data were obtained from the firms' annual reports.FindingsThe regression results indicate that audit committee independence is the only audit committee attribute that seems to improve the effectiveness of ACs, in that it is significantly associated with less EM, while other audit committee attributes that were tested do not show statistically significant associations.Research limitations/implicationsIn emerging markets, like Jordan, ACs may not be an efficient monitoring mechanism; therefore, it can be argued that the prediction made by the agency theory about the role of ACs in mitigating opportunistic EM activities does not necessarily apply to all contexts.Practical implicationsA better understanding of audit committee effectiveness in developing countries could help regulators in these countries assess the impact of planned corporate governance (CG) reforms and to better monitor and enhance the performance of ACs.Social implicationsIn a setting characterized by closely held companies, high power distance and low demand for high-quality CG mechanisms, this study contributes to understanding how this business system operates, and how improving CG mechanisms could be successful in such cultures.Originality/valueThis study investigates the under-researched relationship between audit committee characteristics and EM in developing countries. In so doing, it aims to provide new insights into this relationship within the developing context case of Jordan, including if and how the institutional setting influences this relationship.


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