• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.23-26
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• 2015

Purpose - To mislead shareholders about a firm's actual economic performance, managers frequently manage dividends. Earnings management also affects performance reviews. Managers attempt to manage reported earnings caused by current economic events to accurately reflect their current performance. Research design, data, and methodology - The sample consisted of 312 company-years from companies in the pharmaceutical distribution industry listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. A study period from 2004 to 2014 was selected. In this study, a model for measuring the performance of the net profits to total assets of a division of Jones was used to measure earnings management. Results - This study found a negative correlation between corporate performance and earnings management. Conclusions - The results for the earnings management company indicated a significant inverse relationship. Therefore, the company's performance weakened as its earnings management activity increased. In other words, the results showed that the company's performance-based accruals earnings management, the actual management of profits, and the general level of earnings management had significant inverse relationships. Thus, as the company's profits declined, earnings management activity increased.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.5-16
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• 2021

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the impact of auditor-client traffic convenience on accrual -based and real earnings management of the client firms. Research design, data and methodology: Using a sample of firms listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges over the period of 2007 to 2018, this paper empirically investigates the association between auditor-client traffic convenience and earnings management. We use three measures of auditor-client traffic convenience: railway traffic convenience, expressway traffic convenience, and air traffic convenience. The accrual-based earnings management is measured by abnormal accruals estimated by industry and year using the Modified Jones Model. Results: Findings indicate that traffic convenience is conducive to detecting and restraining positive accrual earnings management and real earnings management. After changing the measurement of independent variable and dependent variable, including potential omitted variables, the results are statistically unchanged. Further, the research shows that traffic convenience can not only improve audit quality, but also lead to higher fee premiums. Auditors didn't share with clients the cost reduction benefits caused by traffic convenience. Conclusions: Traffic convenience provides auditors with easy access to the client firms, alleviating the information asymmetry and improving corporate earnings quality. The findings have implications for regulators, audit practitioners and stakeholders.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.679-688
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• 2021

This study aims to verify family ownership's effect on earnings management by using corporate governance as the moderation variable. This study uses data panel regression with the period of 2011-2017. Corporate governance consisted of three dimensions, namely the board of commissioners, share ownership and transparency, and disclosure and auditing. Discretionary accruals measure earnings management with a model that controls company performance. Samples are manufacturing companies listed on Indonesia Stock Exchange. Observations were conducted on 198 firms throughout the year. The results indicated that corporate governance significantly affected earnings management. However, it declined the significance of family ownership toward earnings management. Hence, corporate governance can reduce earnings management. Furthermore, of the three components of corporate governance: the board of commissioners, shareholding, and transparency, the term shareholding precisely encouraged managers to conduct earnings management. Besides, the three core bodies of corporate governance lowered the significance of shareholding toward earnings management. This study's findings suggest that in family firms in Indonesia, earnings management is becoming more intensive than in non-family firms. Additional tests show that there is an entrenchment effect on family firms in Indonesia. Furthermore, corporate governance leads to earnings management.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.12 no.8
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• pp.7-19
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• 2021

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate (1) whether the interviewed auditors conduct higher quality audit than the non-interviewed auditors and (2) whether the frequency of audit engagement interviews has an impact on audit quality. Research design, data, and methodology: Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms between 2011 and 2019, this paper empirically tests the effect of audit engagement interviews on auditor's behavior. We collect the data of audit engagement interviews on the CICPA's website. We use OLS regression, fixed-effect model and random-effect model to examine the association between audit engagement interviews and audit quality. Results: Findings indicate that the audit quality of the interviewed auditors is significantly greater than that of the non-interviewed auditors. The frequency of the audit engagement interviews is positively associated with audit quality. The interviewed auditors spend significantly more time on the audit. Furthermore, the positive association between audit engagement interviews and audit quality only exists in non-Big 4 auditors. Conclusions: Our findings provide evidence for the effectiveness of audit regulation enforcement. The results suggest that in an emerging market with weak legal systems, preventive regulations such as audit interviews have a deterrent effect and are necessary in alleviating information asymmetry and improving information environment.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.137-151
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• 2020

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate whether financial analysts' cash flow forecasts mitigate the accrual anomaly. In addition, we examine whether the more accurate analysts' cash flow forecasts are the greater the decline of the accrual anomaly. Design/methodology/approach - Data used in the empirical tests are extracted through KIS-VALUE and FN-GUIDE, and the sample consists of firms listed on Korea Stock Exchange for 7 years from 2005 to 2011. We test the hypotheses using multiple regression analysis and we also estimate the regressions with the decile ranks of the explanatory variables to minimize the influence of outliers. Findings - We have failed to capture evidence that the provision of financial analysts' cash flow forecasts itself reduces the accrual anomaly. However, we find the accrual anomaly to be less severe when financial analysts provide more accurate cash flow forecasts. The findings are consistent in the regression models with the decile ranks as well as in the robustness tests that controlled the accruals quality. Research implications or Originality - This study contributes to the expansion of related studies in the Korea by providing empirical evidence partially that the financial analysts' cash flow forecasts mitigate the accrual anomaly.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.1-20
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• 2020

Purpose - This paper shows an unexplored area related to involuntary delisting. Specifically, this research investigates the effect of target firm information asymmetry on the likelihood that the acquirer or newly merged firm will be forcibly delisted post-merger. Design/methodology/approach - The research uses a sample gathered on local US mergers and acquisitions from the Thomson Reuters Securities Data Company (SDC) Platinum Mergers and Acquisitions database. It applies the logistic regression with industry and year effects and corrects the error term using clustering at the industry level. The research also matches the forced delisted firms to control firms based on industry, acquisition completion year, and firm size and then employs a matched sample analysis. Findings - Findings show that M&As between firms where the target firm is opaque and burdened with high information asymmetry issues are likely to be paid for using majority stock and that M&As involving such opaque targets also have a higher likelihood of getting delisted post-merger. Research implications or Originality - Our results are relevant given the very nature of M&As which involve two players: the acquirer and target who both may have different incentives. Acquirers especially have the tendency to suffer losses and even get delisted if they over-pay for or get merged to a poor target which conceals its poor performance evidenced by higher accruals quality.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.57-66
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• 2021

The outbreak of the financial crisis, the lack of corporate governance practices in Iraqi companies, the high level of earnings management (EM), and weak firm performance (FP) have all encouraged the purpose of this study. This study proposes to achieve the following objectives: (I) to investigate the influence of governance mechanisms on the earnings management practices, (II) to investigate the consequence of EM on FP. The study sample includes 65 Iraqi firms listed on the Iraqi stock exchange for six years from 2012 to 2018, with 390 firm-year observations. The hypotheses were tested using panel data regression. According to the findings, Iraqi companies prefer to use real EM rather than accruals EM to avoid reporting losses. Discretionary cash flow, production costs, and cash flow from operation are examples of actual operations employed to undertake EM. Furthermore, according to the findings of this study, board meeting frequency and female onboard have a significant and negative influence on EM. Besides, the internal audit function was found not to affect EM. On the other hand, results revealed a significant and negative relationship between EM and FP. According to the study, management prefers to minimize cash and accrual expenditure during the economic downturn.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.135-142
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• 2021

This study aims to examine the impact of audit committee characteristics on income management of companies listed on the Stock Exchange of Vietnam. Research data was collected from all 745 listed companies on Vietnam's stock market over four years, from 2015 to 2018. After excluding companies that did not qualify, there were 216 companies with 864 observations. With the help of dedicated software Stata 15, the impact of audit committee characteristics (through independent variables and control variables such as Audit Committee Independence, Auditing Committee size, Auditing Committee Expertise, Auditing Committee Meeting Frequency, Company Size, Financial Leverage, and Operating Cash Flow) to earning management through a multivariate regression model was determined. Research results from Vietnamese listed companies during this period show that the size and expertise of the audit committee are inversely related to the discretionary accruals representing earning management. At the same time, the research results also identify a positive relationship between firm size and earning management, and the inverse relationship between financial leverage, net cash flow from operating operations and earning management. However, the multivariate regression results do not find clear evidence of a relationship between audit committee independence and the audit committee meeting frequency to earning management.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.143-150
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• 2021

This study investigates and analyzes the difference in Indonesian banks' earnings quality in the pre-audit and post-audit period. This study also investigates the difference in audit quality done by public accounting firms. This study employs time series data taken from the unaudited and audited financial statements of banks listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2012-2016. Sample selection is made by using a purposive sampling method. The population of this study is 43 banks, and after checking the data for validity and reliability, the final sample size was 26 banks. Audit quality is operationalized with the size of the auditor. Earnings quality is proxied by accruals calculated using the Beaver and Engel (1996) model. The data analysis method used in this study is the paired-sample t-test and chow test. This study shows that there is no difference in earnings quality in the pre-audit and post-audit period. This study also reveals no difference in audit quality between the big four and non-big four auditors. These findings mean that independent auditors do not play a useful role in increasing the reliability of accounting information presented by management to stakeholders. Besides, this study's results do not verify the agency theory regarding auditors' role to minimize opportunistic management behavior in preparing financial statements.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.231-243
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• 2022

The objective of this study is to analyze the impact of conservative financial reporting on investment during uncertainty. It was assumed that during uncertainty conservative financial reporting can play an important role to improve investment decision-making. For our analysis, data sets from 2005-2020 of nonfinancial companies are used. To measure the impact of conservative financial reporting in the non-financial sector of Pakistan, Khan and Watts' (2009) model is applied. "Prospector" and "Defender" Business strategy is applied for measuring firm-level uncertainty. Investment is measured by adding the change in fixed assets (property, plant, and equipment). To check the robustness of conservative financial reporting, Givoly and Hayn's (2000) Negative Accruals measure is applied. To measure the robustness of uncertainty, environmental scanning and alertness technique is applied. According to environmental scanning and alertness technique, companies are divided into two groups named 'inert' and 'alert'. 'Inert' are those firms that are not scanning their environment, and 'alert' are those firms who continuously analyze their environment. The empirical estimations support our hypothesis. The empirical findings provide the proof that in the wake of uncertainty conservative financial reporting may facilitate to take optimal investment decisions in the developing economy of Pakistan. Our results provide critical and practical implications for investors, researchers, and standard setters.