scholarly journals The Impact of Audit Committee Characteristics on Real Earnings Management: The Moderating Role of Seniority Level and Education Level of Chief Financial Officer

Author(s):  
Michelle Tevi Goeinawan ◽  
Micheline Clarissa ◽  
Yulius Jogi Christiawan
Author(s):  
Mohammed Ghanim Ahmed ◽  
Yuvaraj Ganesan ◽  
Fathyah Hashim

The increase in the number of firms manipulating financial reports has misled shareholders' investment decisions and resulted in an indelible blot on foreign investors’ trust. Due to earnings management (EM) practice, managers' inefficiency, and lack of transparency in Iraq companies. This study tested the influence of the corporate governance mechanisms (CG), (board independence, audit committee, meeting frequency) on EM based on agency theory, as well, to link between EM and firm's performance (FP) in Iraqi listed companies and the impact of moderating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) based on the Stakeholder Theory. The study's sample consists of 65 companies for the 2013-2018 financial years. Data were collected mainly from the annual reports (secondary data) of the Iraqi listed firms. This study uses the M-score model to detect EM practices as practical techniques in detecting earnings manipulation practices. The panel static model estimators. Hence, this paper adds to the CG literature from the perspective of stakeholder theory using Iraq's unique industrial environment. Based on the research results, policy-makers might use the study‘s findings to recognize the essential roles of several CG mechanisms in alleviating the opportunistic practices in Iraq. Further, companies should also be encouraged to enhance the CSR disclosure quality.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sana Mardessi Masmoudi

The purposes of this study are to shed light, on the one hand, on the effect of audit committee characteristics, namely independent members in audit committee, a financial expert in audit committee, frequency of meetings and audit committee size on financial reporting quality proxied by real earnings management. On the other hand, it aims to investigate the moderating role of audit quality in the relationship between audit committee characteristics and financial reporting quality. The objective is to contribute to the new evidence on the role of audit committee characteristics towards the financial reporting quality with audit quality as a moderator, particularly the appointment of Big 4 company. This study uses the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to achieve the research purpose by evaluating the data collected from 90 public listed companies from 2010 to 2019 in the Dutch context. The results state that audit committee characteristics have a statistically significant relationship with real earnings management. However, the effect of audit committee meetings on abnormal operating cash flow and discretionary expenses is not significant. There is also evidence that audit quality positively moderates the audit committee and real earnings management links. Lastly, the findings of this study will help professional accountancy bodies and governments to highlight the relevance of earnings management in safeguarding trustworthy financial information, owners’ wealth and to enhance audit committee characteristics in improving audit quality, especially after the enforcement of the Dutch Corporate Governance Code in 2016.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manish Bansal ◽  
Asgar Ali ◽  
Bhawna Choudhary

PurposeThe study aims at investigating the impact of real earnings management (REM) on the cross-sectional stock return after considering the moderating role of market effect, size effect, value effect and momentum effect.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses weekly and monthly data of 3,085 Bombay Stock Exchange listed stocks spanning over twenty years, from January 2000 to December 2019. REM is measured through metrics developed by Roychowdhury (2006), namely, abnormal levels of operating cash flows, production costs and discretionary expenditure. The study employs univariate and bivariate portfolio-level analysis.FindingsThe findings deduced from the empirical results demonstrate that investors perceive downward REM as an element of risk; hence, they discount the stock prices at a higher rate. On the contrary, results show that investors positively perceive upward REM; hence, they hold the stocks even at a lower rate of return. This anomaly is found to be robust for all kinds of considered moderations.Practical implicationsThe findings have important managerial implications as investors are found to assign different weights to different forms of REM, depending upon the perception regarding the magnitude of risk involved in different forms. Managers can accommodate this information during their short- and long-term corporate planning.Originality/valueFirst, the study is among the earlier attempts to examine the association between REM and stock returns by considering the moderating role of cross-sectional effects. Second, the study considers the direction and endogenous nature of REM while investigating the issue.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 58-77
Author(s):  
Roozbeh Sardari ◽  
Mohammadreza Setayesh ◽  
Hamidreza Kordlouie ◽  
Bahman Banimahd

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.


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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 163
Author(s):  
Linda Santioso, Emily Janice, Andreas Bambang Daryatno

This research aims to find out and analyze the impact of audit committee financial expertise, audit quality that is proxied by external audit firm size, and profitability on real earnings management. The method used in this research was purposive sampling with a total sample of 59 manufacturing companies listed in Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX). The type of data used was secondary data acquired through financial statements extracted from www.idx.co.id. Data analysis methods used in this research were classical assumption analysis, descriptive statistical test, f test, t test, and the test of determination coefficient. T test was used to test this study’s hypothesis. Final result of the study showed that audit committee financial expertise and audit quality proxied by external audit firm size do not have any significant effect on real earnings management, while profitability has been shown to have a positive effect on real earnings management.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tesfaye Taddese Lemma ◽  
Ayalew Lulseged ◽  
Mthokozisi Mlilo ◽  
Minga Negash

Purpose This study aims to examine the impact of political stability and political rights on firm-level earnings (both accrual-based and real) management. Design/methodology/approach The authors develop models that link political stability, political rights, and the interplay between the two and earnings (both accrual-based and real) management. The authors analyze 63,872 firm-year observations of publicly listed, non-financial, firms drawn from 39 countries, for the period 1995 to 2016. Findings The authors find that political stability (political rights) attenuates (accentuates) accrual-based earnings management; political rights (political stability) accentuates (have no effect on) real earnings management; and the association between political rights and real earnings management is more pronounced in countries with better political stability. Practical implications The findings imply that users of financial statements should take cognizance of a country’s ambient political environment in assessing the potential for earnings management by firms. Originality/value No prior research examined the role of political forces in shaping firm-level earnings management behavior in a cross-country setting.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sana Masmoudi Mardessi ◽  
Yosra Makni Fourati

This paper aims to examine the effect of the characteristics of an audit committee on real earnings management in the Dutch context. Our sample is composed of 80 non-financial companies listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange during the period between 2010 and 2017. Four proxies are used to measure audit committee characteristics, namely, audit committee independence, financial expertise, gender diversity, and audit committee meetings. To test our hypotheses, we use a regression model to identify the influence of a set of audit committee characteristics on real earnings management after controlling for firm audit committee size, leverage, size, loss, growth and board size. Our analyses provide evidence that audit committee independence and gender diversity constrain real earnings management. Our findings also suggest that audit committee financial expertise reduces to some extent the likelihood of engaging in real earnings management. To the best of our knowledge, the Dutch context is not yet explored especially following the issue of the long-awaited new Dutch Corporate Governance Code in 2016 which has been updated for a long period in 2008. Therefore, corporate governance is a relevant topic in the Netherlands. This study contributes geographically to the Audit Committee and earnings management literature that examines another possible method, specifically, real earnings management.


2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 661 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorra Talbi ◽  
Mohamed Ali Omri ◽  
Khaled Guesmi ◽  
Zied Ftiti

<p>This study seeks to provide empirical evidence of the efficacy of board characteristics in constraining management opportunism, measured by real earnings management. The paper uses regression analysis to document empirical evidence regarding the impact of the independence of boards of directors and the independence of committees on real earnings management in 7,481 US firms over the period 2000 to 2009. This study contributes to empirical studies on the role of corporate governance in financial reporting quality by demonstrating the role of the independence of boards of directors and the independence of committees in constraining real earnings management. These results should contribute to providing an orientation for future regulators regarding possible amendments, especially in the wake of the current financial crisis.</p>


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