We examine the relationship between audit committee directors' unequal allocation of attention to multiple directorships and firms' earnings management. We find that firms with a greater proportion of audit committee directors for whom the directorship is more important than their other...

Masulis and Mobbs (2014, 2015) find that independent directors with multiple directorships allocate their monitoring effort unequally based on a directorship's relative prestige. We investigate whether bank loan contract terms reflect such unequal allocation of directors' monitoring effort. We...

In this study, we examine the effect of accrual-based earnings management on the association between managers' earnings forecast errors and accruals, which we label “managers' accrual-related forecast bias.” We build on extensive research which finds that managers engage in accrual-based...

Because Chief Operating Officers (COOs) are responsible for internal operations and because the use of real earnings management (REM) can have negative consequences on longterm operating performance, we posit that COO firms will be less likely to use REM to inflate near-term earnings. Consistent...

The demand for chief financial officer (CFO) service on corporate boards has grown substantially in recent years, leading to questions about how these outside board appointments might affect a CFO's ability to fulfill her responsibilities at her home firm. Contrary to concerns about CFOs being...