Audit Committee, Board of Director Characteristics, and Earnings Management

Audit Committee, Board of Director Characteristics, and Earnings Management PDF Author: April Klein
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 42

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Book Description
This study examines whether audit committee and board characteristics are related to earnings management by the firm. The motivation behind this study is the implicit assertion by the SEC, the NYSE and the NASDAQ that earnings management and poor corporate governance mechanisms are positively related. A non-linear negative relation is found between audit committee independence and earnings manipulation. Specifically, a significant relation is found only when the audit committee has less than a majority of independent directors. Surprisingly, and in contrast to the new regulations, no significant association is found between earnings management and the more stringent requirement of 100% audit committee independence. Empirical evidence also is provided that other corporate governance characteristics are related to earnings management. Earnings management is positively related to whether the CEO sits on the board's compensation committee. It is negatively related to the CEO's shareholdings and to whether a large outside shareholder sits on the board's audit committee. These results suggest that boards structured to be more independent of the CEO may be more effective in monitoring the corporate financial accounting process.

Audit Committee, Board of Director Characteristics, and Earnings Management

Audit Committee, Board of Director Characteristics, and Earnings Management PDF Author: April Klein
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 42

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Book Description
This study examines whether audit committee and board characteristics are related to earnings management by the firm. The motivation behind this study is the implicit assertion by the SEC, the NYSE and the NASDAQ that earnings management and poor corporate governance mechanisms are positively related. A non-linear negative relation is found between audit committee independence and earnings manipulation. Specifically, a significant relation is found only when the audit committee has less than a majority of independent directors. Surprisingly, and in contrast to the new regulations, no significant association is found between earnings management and the more stringent requirement of 100% audit committee independence. Empirical evidence also is provided that other corporate governance characteristics are related to earnings management. Earnings management is positively related to whether the CEO sits on the board's compensation committee. It is negatively related to the CEO's shareholdings and to whether a large outside shareholder sits on the board's audit committee. These results suggest that boards structured to be more independent of the CEO may be more effective in monitoring the corporate financial accounting process.

Do Audit Committee and Characteristics of Board of Directors Influence Earnings Management?

Do Audit Committee and Characteristics of Board of Directors Influence Earnings Management? PDF Author: CPA Pathak PhD (CGA, CFF, CFE, CISA, Jag)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 38

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Book Description
Earnings management has attracted much attention in this globalized economic environment due to large accounting scandals such as Enron and WorldCom. National governments and other market-regulation institutions are taking measures to restrain earnings management in order to ensure the reliability and transparency of financial reporting. This study explores whether audit committees and boards of directors influence earnings management using the literary review method. The findings show that both discretionary accruals and abnormal accruals are mostly used as dependent variables to detect earnings manipulation estimated by the Jones and Modified Jones Models. For the most part, evidence from previous literatures indicates that the more independent the members of the audit committee and board, the higher the quality of earnings in financial reporting. However, some opposite findings exist.

Board of Directors' Governance Challenges and Earnings Management

Board of Directors' Governance Challenges and Earnings Management PDF Author: Ruth W. Epps
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Purpose - This study examines the relationship between corporate governance and earnings management in U.S. context and provides further insights on the effects of board of directors' characteristics on earnings management. The study uses a sample of three groups of U.S. firms; where firms with relatively high negative, firms with relatively high positive and those with low levels of discretionary accruals in the year 2004 are examined. Descriptive statistics, univariate analysis, multivariate analysis, board of directors' characteristics and possible relationships between corporate governance variables and earnings management proxy provide the basis for discussion. The findings indicate that firms with annually elected boards, small size boards, 100% independent nominating committees and 100% independent compensation committees have more negative discretionary accruals. However, firms with 75% to 90% independent board or firms with a board size of between 9 and 12 have higher positive discretionary accruals.Research Implications - Certain board characteristics may be important factors associated with constraining the propensity of managers to engage in earnings management.The study's major contributions to the existing literature are its findings that income-increasing and income-decreasing discretionary accruals have a different relationship with corporate governance practices and its expansion of the scope of corporate governance from board independence and audit committee independence to other corporate governance characteristics. This study provides evidence that supports U.S. regulators' initiatives that stronger corporate governance mechanisms provide greater monitoring of the financial accounting process and may be important factors in improving the integrity of financial reporting.

Audit Committees

Audit Committees PDF Author: Frank M. Burke
Publisher: CCH
ISBN: 9780808091646
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description


Board Characteristics, Audit Committee Characteristics and Abnormal Accruals

Board Characteristics, Audit Committee Characteristics and Abnormal Accruals PDF Author: Michael E. Bradbury
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 29

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Book Description
Prior research examines the relation between board characteristics and financial reporting violations relating to fraud and earnings overstatement. This paper examines the relation between governance (as measured by board and audit committee characteristics) and accounting quality (as measured by abnormal accruals) where there is no a priori reason to suspect systematic management of earnings. We find both board size and audit committee independence are related to higher quality accounting (i.e., lower abnormal working capital accruals). Furthermore, the relation between audit committee independence and higher quality accounting exists only when the abnormal accruals are income increasing. This suggests that audit committees are effective in the financial reporting process by reducing the level of income increasing abnormal accruals. The results also indicate that audit committees are effective only when they comprise independent directors.

Which Characteristics Determine a Perfect Board of Directors? A Review of the Economic Literature

Which Characteristics Determine a Perfect Board of Directors? A Review of the Economic Literature PDF Author: Felix Pütz
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3346485145
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 8

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Book Description
Academic Paper from the year 2020 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,3, Maastricht University, language: English, abstract: The board of directors is an important organizational institution, whose purpose is to reduce the agency problem inherited by the management of a firm. However, because of various accounting frauds and failures in corporate governance in the history of larger corporations, there is increasing public attention regarding the effectiveness of a board and how a perfect board should be designed to increase their oversight quality. Because of these many researchers investigated this topic. This paper reviews recent academic research regarding the characteristics of a perfect board of directors. Firstly, the paper analyses different board characteristics, then it investigates the importance of the composition and size of the audit committee.

Corporate Payout Policy

Corporate Payout Policy PDF Author: Harry DeAngelo
Publisher: Now Publishers Inc
ISBN: 1601982046
Category : Corporations
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
Corporate Payout Policy synthesizes the academic research on payout policy and explains "how much, when, and how". That is (i) the overall value of payouts over the life of the enterprise, (ii) the time profile of a firm's payouts across periods, and (iii) the form of those payouts. The authors conclude that today's theory does a good job of explaining the general features of corporate payout policies, but some important gaps remain. So while our emphasis is to clarify "what we know" about payout policy, the authors also identify a number of interesting unresolved questions for future research. Corporate Payout Policy discusses potential influences on corporate payout policy including managerial use of payouts to signal future earnings to outside investors, individuals' behavioral biases that lead to sentiment-based demands for distributions, the desire of large block stockholders to maintain corporate control, and personal tax incentives to defer payouts. The authors highlight four important "carry-away" points: the literature's focus on whether repurchases will (or should) drive out dividends is misplaced because it implicitly assumes that a single payout vehicle is optimal; extant empirical evidence is strongly incompatible with the notion that the primary purpose of dividends is to signal managers' views of future earnings to outside investors; over-confidence on the part of managers is potentially a first-order determinant of payout policy because it induces them to over-retain resources to invest in dubious projects and so behavioral biases may, in fact, turn out to be more important than agency costs in explaining why investors pressure firms to accelerate payouts; the influence of controlling stockholders on payout policy --- particularly in non-U.S. firms, where controlling stockholders are common --- is a promising area for future research. Corporate Payout Policy is required reading for both researchers and practitioners interested in understanding this central topic in corporate finance and governance.

Corporate Governance and Earnings Management

Corporate Governance and Earnings Management PDF Author: Sonda Marrakchi Chtourou
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
This study investigates whether a firm's corporate governance practices have an effect on the quality of its publicly released financial information. In particular, we examine the relationship between audit committee and board of directors characteristics and the extent of corporate earnings management as measured by the level of positive and negative discretionary accruals. Using two groups of US firms, one with relatively high and one with relatively low levels of discretionary accruals in the year 1996, we find that earnings management is significantly associated with some of the governance practices by audit committees and boards of directors. For audit committees, income increasing earnings management is negatively associated with a larger proportion of outside members who are not managers in other firms, a clear mandate for overseeing both the financial statements and the external audit, and a committee composed only of independent directors that meets more than twice a year. We also find that short-term stocks options held by non-executive committee members are associated with income increasing earnings management. Income decreasing earnings management is negatively associated with the presence of at least a member with financial expertise and a clear mandate for overseeing both the financial statements and the external audit.For the board of directors, we find less income increasing earnings management in firms whose outside board members have experience as board members with the firm and with other firms. We also find that larger board, the importance of the ownership stakes in the firm held by non-executive directors, and experience as board members seems to reduce income decreasing earnings management.Our results provide evidence that effective boards and audit committees constrain earnings management activities. These findings have implications for regulators, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as they attempt to supervise firms whose financial reporting is in the gray area between legitimacy and outright fraud and where earnings statements reflect the desires of management rather than the underlying financial performance of the company, as pointed out by the Blue Ribbon Committee (1999).

Corporate Governance and Earnings Management

Corporate Governance and Earnings Management PDF Author: Ruth W. Epps
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This study investigates the relationship between corporate governance characteristics and earnings management. These characteristics include board structure, board composition, board size, CEO characteristics, nominating committee independence, compensation committee independence, and board disclosure policies. The study makes no pre-assumptions or specific predictions on which corporate governance characteristics have an impact on earnings management and which would not. Rather, a factor analysis approach is used, whereby all the above fore mentioned aspects of corporate governance are linked to earnings management to determine the corporate governance factor loading. Three groups of U.S. firms, one with relatively high negative, one with relatively high positive and one with low levels of discretionary accruals in the year 2004 are examined. In contrast to prior literature where board composition is defined as either an insiders-controlled board or outsiders-controlled board, this study classifies board composition into seven discrete categories: >50% insiders, >50% insiders and affiliated officers, between 50% and 66.7% outsiders, between 75% and 90% outsiders, between 90% and 100% outsiders, and 100% outsiders. In a univariate approach, the study finds that firms with annually elected boards, small size boards, 100% independent nominating committees and 100% independent compensation committees have more negative discretionary accruals. However, firms with 75% to 90% independent board or firms with a board size of between 9 and 12 have higher positive discretionary accruals. The study's major contributions to the existing literature are its findings that income-increasing and income-decreasing discretionary accruals have a different relationship with corporate governance practices and its expansion of the scope of corporate governance from board independence and audit committee independence to other corporate governance characteristics such as board election rule, board size, nominating committee independence, compensation committee independence, and board disclosure policies.

Final Accounting

Final Accounting PDF Author: Barbara Ley Toffler
Publisher: Currency
ISBN: 0767913833
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
A withering exposé of the unethical practices that triggered the indictment and collapse of the legendary accounting firm. Arthur Andersen's conviction on obstruction of justice charges related to the Enron debacle spelled the abrupt end of the 88-year-old accounting firm. Until recently, the venerable firm had been regarded as the accounting profession's conscience. In Final Accounting, Barbara Ley Toffler, former Andersen partner-in-charge of Andersen's Ethics & Responsible Business Practices consulting services, reveals that the symptoms of Andersen's fatal disease were evident long before Enron. Drawing on her expertise as a social scientist and her experience as an Andersen insider, Toffler chronicles how a culture of arrogance and greed infected her company and led to enormous lapses in judgment among her peers. Final Accounting exposes the slow deterioration of values that led not only to Enron but also to the earlier financial scandals of other Andersen clients, including Sunbeam and Waste Management, and illustrates the practices that paved the way for the accounting fiascos at WorldCom and other major companies. Chronicling the inner workings of Andersen at the height of its success, Toffler reveals "the making of an Android," the peculiar process of employee indoctrination into the Andersen culture; how Androids—both accountants and consultants--lived the mantra "keep the client happy"; and how internal infighting and "billing your brains out" rather than quality work became the all-important goals. Toffler was in a position to know when something was wrong. In her earlier role as ethics consultant, she worked with over 60 major companies and was an internationally renowned expert at spotting and correcting ethical lapses. Toffler traces the roots of Andersen's ethical missteps, and shows the gradual decay of a once-proud culture. Uniquely qualified to discuss the personalities and principles behind one of the greatest shake-ups in United States history, Toffler delivers a chilling report with important ramifications for CEOs and individual investors alike.