The credibility of earnings announced by new stock companies: accrual and real earnings management

Research background: An initial public offering (IPO) creates an excellent opportunity to research the impact of changes in the institutional environment of companies on the trustworthiness of the information disclosed in financial statements. Purpose of the article: The main aim of the study is to analyze the use of accrual and real earnings management to inflate earnings, revenue, or total assets around the going public event. Therefore, this paper contributes to the stream of study on the quality of financial reporting of new stock companies. Methods: Two main approaches reflect the use of various types of earnings management activities, i.e., discretionary accruals and real earnings management. In both cases, it was necessary to use proper OLS method estimated models to identify the normal level of categories that affect the results reported in financial statements. Findings & value added: Based on a sample of 183 IPOs from the Warsaw Stock Exchange between 2005 and 2015, generally, managers of newly-listed companies actively use discretionary accruals, reduce production costs and certain discretionary expenses, and abnormal cash flows from operations — i.e., all proxies of earnings management used in the paper — in the periods around the IPO. In the period prior to the IPO, managers more often introduce techniques typical of the real sphere of the company's operations, in particular, the deliberate modeling of certain discretionary costs. In turn, the use of discretionary accruals dominates in the year after the IPO.