It is well documented that firms tend to manipulate earnings before IPO (initial public offerings) and SEO (seasoned equity offerings). This study contributes to the literature by providing the first evidence on whether and how fiscal support in the form of preferential tax treatment and...

Using a large sample of multinational corporations (MNCs), we examine the location of earnings management within the firm. We posit and find that MNCs manage their consolidated earnings through an orchestrated reporting strategy across subsidiaries over which they exert significant influence....

Studies on state ownership often involve endogeneity issues, such as a lack of variation in state ownership status and vastly different firm characteristics between state-owned enterprises and private firms. By using an exogenous regulatory reform, the split share structure reform in China, this...

We examine asset sales as a method of real earnings management around the benchmarks of loss avoidance and last year's earnings. Evidence is reported of asset sales to boost or reduce earnings near the benchmark of last year's earnings. For the benchmark of zero earnings our results are...

Objective – The Indonesian Accounting Standard Authority has required companies to adopt the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) since its adoption in 2012. The new standard emphasizes relevance, while the previous standard focused on conservative issues. While the IFRS does not...

Does the impact of international Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) inspections extend beyond country borders of inspected auditors? We investigate this question by examining multinational business groups. Following initial PCAOB inspections of accounting firms auditing foreign...

The paper aims to examine earnings management practices in local governments, focusing on two Mediterranean countries, namely Greece and Italy that have comparable administration systems. According to public choice theory, the conflicting interests between politicians who pursue re-election and...

Using the Miles & Snow (1978, 2003) strategy typology and a measure of strategy based on Bentley, Omar, & Sharp (2013) and Ittner, Larcker, & Rajan (1997), we investigate whether business strategy is associated with the quality of reported earnings. Our sample comprises 44,264 firm-year...

This study investigates the influence of the board chairman's involvement in the audit committee (AC) (as a proxy of AC independence) on earnings management (EM) practices. We examine Bursa Malaysia listed firms with slight positive earnings for the years 2013 to 2015. Using ordinary least...

Purpose – The aim is to explore whether principles-based versus rules-based accounting standards have an effect on measures of financial reporting quality and earnings management strategies. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses a firm-year-specific variable that captures the extent...