scholarly journals Earnings Volatility, the Use of Financial Derivatives and Earnings Management: Evidence from an Emerging Market

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Lian Kee Phua ◽  
Char-Lee Lok ◽  
Yong Xia Chua ◽  
Tan-Chin Lim

In the face of crises such as Covid-19, businesses become devastated by greater risk exposure, particularly in currency exchange, supply chain disruption, and fluctuation in commodity prices that cause volatile earnings trends. Higher earnings volatility is frequently associated with greater risk. Consequently, firms could be inspired to engage in earnings management or derivative use as attempts to mitigate earnings volatility. Using a sample of 169 of the largest non-financial firms with 507 firm-years observations from an emerging market, the researchers examined the relationship among derivative use, earnings volatility, and earnings management. The results of a panel regression analysis showed that derivative use by Malaysian public listed companies was positively connected with earnings volatility, inferring that the use of derivatives did not mitigate earnings volatility as intended. This study also found that both earnings volatility and derivative use have a positive relationship with earnings management. This implies that firms engage in earnings management to curb earnings volatility under circumstances where derivative use is associated with higher earnings volatility. Evidence derived from this study contributes to extant literature on financial risk management involving financial instruments, an area that is very much understudied in the contexts of emerging markets.

We examine whether wide-ranging board diversity reduce earnings management from the emerging market of Malaysia. We contribute to the prior literature in several ways. First, while previous literature are mainly focusing on the developing economy, our study is the first that examine the relationship between all-inclusive set of diverse board characteristics and earnings management from the emerging economy. Second, we concentrate to the post-GFC period, where we intentionally avoid the GFC, a situation where managerial opportunistic behaviour to engage in earnings management is more prevalent due to economic reason. Third, we cover the potential complementary or substitutive effects of board diversity characteristics on earnings management. Using 1400 listed firms in emerging market of Malaysia over the period of 2009-2015, in contrast to our prediction, our findings demonstrated that the relationship between board diversity characteristics and earnings management in the Malaysia is mixed. We therefore conclude that the diversity mechanism that work well in the developing countries might not necessarily compatible to the emerging economy such as Malaysia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 2232
Author(s):  
Ana Belen Tulcanaza-Prieto ◽  
Younghwan Lee ◽  
Jeong-Ho Koo

This study examines how leverage affects real earnings management (REM) in non-financial firms listed on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index from 2010 to 2018 by employing total, short-term, and long-term debt ratios (i.e., leverage) as independent variables and four REM metrics as dependent variables. We find a significant positive relationship between leverage and REM in suspicious firms, whereas the effect of leverage is insignificant in non-suspicious firms. We also find that the positive relationship between both variables is stronger in the second half of the fiscal year, which shows the prevalence of the seasonality of REM, as managers collect high-frequency financial information during this period. These findings are consistent with those in the literature that managers increase firm leverage and REM activities to reduce their probability of being discovered, since financial statements in the interim quarters are not often audited. Our study complements the literature by introducing quarterly data to identify clearly REM activities and detect the strongest effect on the relationship between REM and leverage. Moreover, our results from the two-stage least square (2SLS) regression analysis are consistent with our previous findings.


Author(s):  
Inten Rachmawati Abuda ◽  
Felizia Arni Rudiawarni

Objective - the objective of this research is to explain whether the adoption of IFRS in Indonesia has improved accounting information quality. Methodology/Technique - Earnings volatility and discretionary accruals are used to test the scope of earnings management on a set of accounting standard used. The regression of share price and book value per share and net profit per share, along with the explanatory power of the model were used to test the value relevance of the accounting standards applied. Findings - This research finds that no significant difference of earnings management's scope after the mandatory adoption of the IFRS. Moreover, this research also finds that IFRS does not result in higher value relevance. Novelty - This research presents evidence of IFRS convergence from an emerging market point of view, particularly in Indonesia. The focus of this research is to examine the impact of IFRS adoption of financial statement quality using multiple measurements. Type of Paper - Empirical Keywords: Financial statement quality; International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS); Earnings management; Earnings volatility; Value relevance.


Author(s):  
Omar Issa Juhmani

This study examines the effectiveness of some audit committee (AC) characteristics to monitor management behavior with the respect to their incentives to manage earnings. Bahraini listed companies on Bahrain Bursa for the year 2012 to 2014 have been investigated to analyze the relationship between AC characteristics and earnings management. The AC characteristics examined are AC independence, AC size, AC meetings and AC financial experts. Multivariate regression modelis used to examine the relationship between earnings managementasdependent variable and AC characteristics as independent variables and other firm-specific attributes, as control variables. As a small developing market, Bahrain’s unique business environment and context offer a good opportunity and provides a useful setting for examining the effectiveness of AC characteristics in detecting and preventing earnings management practices. The results show that discretionary accruals as a proxy for earnings management is negatively associated with AC size and AC financial experts, but positively associated audit firm size as control variable. However, the results do not show a significant relationship between AC independence, AC meetings, company size, leverage and earnings management. This study extends the literature on the monitoring function of the AC on earnings management, and contributes geographically to the financial reporting process and earnings management literatures by analyzing data from an emerging market and providing useful information for the corporations, accounting profession and the regulators on the effective practice of ACs.


Author(s):  
Sondes Draief

This research investigates the effect of the determinants of accounting discretion (beating last year’s earnings, overinvestment problems, growth options, debt, and financial risk) on the relationship between earnings management and stock returns. We use discretionary accruals as a proxy of earnings management.Based on a sample of 486 American firms for the period 2002-2010, our results show that discretionary accruals are positively priced by the market. This relation is even stronger when firms beat last year’s earnings, have higher growth options and increase their debt ratio. Indeed, firms’ accounting manipulations are used, in these circumstances, to convey private information about future prospects and signal good financial situation to external investors. However, discretionary accruals are negatively priced by investors in distressed firms and when overinvestment problems are intense. These firms have greater motivation to use opportunistic earnings management to camouflage the fall of firm value.


2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 344-359
Author(s):  
Priyesh Valiya Purayil ◽  
Jijo Lukose P.J.

Purpose Prior research on earnings management largely assumes that newly public firms manage earnings opportunistically around IPOs. However, only a few studies have empirically examined the real motives behind newly public firms’ earnings management. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of ownership dilution on earnings management among IPO firms. The authors chose the setting of security offerings in an emerging market, which is characterised by unique ownership structure, to examine the possible incentive of owners or pre-IPO shareholders to engage in earnings management. Design/methodology/approach The study employs accrual and real transactions measures to check the presence of earnings management among 409 IPO firms from India during the period 2000‒2018. Subsequently, using ordinary least squares regression models with heteroscedasticity-robust standard errors, this paper examines the relationship between earnings management and selling or dilution incentives of pre-IPO shareholders. Findings The study finds that the degree of earnings manipulation by issuer firms is positively associated with the ownership dilution at the time of IPO as well as around lockup expiration. Practical implications The findings of this study will help the investors and regulators to understand the practice of earnings management among IPO firms and how it is linked to the ownership dilution of pre-IPO shareholders. Originality/value The paper contributes to the limited stream of research that investigates the motives of earnings management among IPO firms. It empirically establishes an association between the selling incentive of pre-IPO shareholders and earnings management.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (0) ◽  
pp. 372-378
Author(s):  
Doddy Setiawan ◽  
Ronny Prabowo ◽  
Vina Arnita ◽  
Anas Wibawa

This paper aims at examining the effect of corporate social responsibility on earnings management in the Indonesian banking industry. Using Indonesian publicly listed banking firms in the years of 2013–2015 as the sample, we generate 94 firm-year observations as the final sample. The results show that corporate social responsibility positively affects earnings management, suggesting that the higher the corporate social responsibility score, the greater earnings management. Further, the study investigates the effects of corporate social responsibility on absolute earnings management, positive earnings management, and negative earnings management. The results robustly demonstrate the positive effects of corporate social responsibility on earnings management. Thus, this study implies that investors need to be cautious of banks that engage in higher corporate social responsibility because they are more likely to exhibit greater earnings management. While most of the previous studies in this issue focus on developed countries as their research settings, this study provides empirical evidence on the relationship between corporate social responsibility in Indonesia as an emerging market.


2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (12) ◽  
pp. 1149
Author(s):  
T. L. Nordblom ◽  
T. R. Hutchings ◽  
R. C. Hayes ◽  
G. D. Li ◽  
J. D. Finlayson

Rainfed farms in south-eastern Australia often combine annual cropping and perennial pasture phases with grazing sheep enterprises. Such diversity serves in managing diseases, pests and plant nutrition while stabilising income in the face of wide, uncorrelated variations in international commodity prices and local weather over time. We use an actuarial accounting approach to capture the above contexts to render financial risk profiles in the form of distributions of decadal cash balances for a representative 1000-ha farm at Coolamon (34°50ʹS, 147°12ʹE) in New South Wales, Australia. For the soil and weather conditions at this location we pose the question of which approach is better when establishing the perennial pasture lucerne (Medicago sativa L.): sowing with the final crop of the cropping phase, or sowing alone following the final crop? It is less expensive to sow lucerne with the final crop, which can provide useful income from the sale of grain, but this practice can reduce pasture quantity and quality in poorer years. Although many years of field research have confirmed that sowing lucerne alone is the most reliable way to establish a pasture in this area, and years of extension messages to this effect have gone out to farmers, they often persist in sowing lucerne with their final cereal crops. For this region, counting all costs, we show that sowing lucerne alone can reduce farm financial risk (i.e. probability of negative decadal cash balances) at stocking rates >10 dry sheep equivalents (DSE)/ha, compared with the practice of sowing lucerne with a cover crop. Establishing lucerne alone allows the farmer the option to profitably run higher stocking rates for higher median decadal cash margins without additional financial risk. At low stocking rates (i.e. 5 DSE/ha), there appears to be no financial advantage of either establishment approach. We consider the level of equity, background farm debt and overhead costs to demonstrate how these also affect risk-profile positions of the two sowing options. For a farm that is deeply in debt, we cannot suggest either approach to establishing lucerne will lead to substantially better financial outcomes.


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