We conduct two experiments to examine the joint effect of two justification factors of earnings management, namely attribution for the firm’s underperformance and benefits accruing to other employees from inflating reported earnings. In the main experiment, we predict and find that managers...

An audit committee (AC) report is the primary channel through which investors learn about the responsibilities and activities of an AC. AC members may use personal language (“we”) or impersonal language (“the audit committee”) in an AC report. Psychology research suggests that personal...

We conduct two experiments to investigate the joint effect of two justification factors of earnings management—namely, attribution for the firm’s underperformance and benefits accruing to other employees from inflating reported earnings. This investigation is important because prior research...