IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/mgtdec/v43y2022i2p431-439.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Earnings and discretionary accruals

Author

Listed:
  • Yasmin Jamadar
  • Tze San Ong
  • Asna Atqa Abdullah
  • Fakarudin Kamarudin

Abstract

Earnings management is a concerning issue for investors and regulators as it reduces the informativeness of financial reporting. Discretionary accruals are acknowledged to be proxies for earnings management. The study is conducted on firms in the US markets from 1975 to 2012, and the quantitative methodology is applied. Earnings management is revealed by an abnormal level of accruals relative to the firm's business activity. This paper investigates the earnings pattern and earnings management of the firm based on different models of discretionary accruals as proxies for earnings management: modified Jones, performance‐matched discretionary, and growth‐based cash flow discretionary accruals. Using a novel approach to detect the earnings pattern of firms, we find that firms in the negative earnings group are more involved in earnings management activity.

Suggested Citation

  • Yasmin Jamadar & Tze San Ong & Asna Atqa Abdullah & Fakarudin Kamarudin, 2022. "Earnings and discretionary accruals," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(2), pages 431-439, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:mgtdec:v:43:y:2022:i:2:p:431-439
    DOI: 10.1002/mde.3391
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/mde.3391
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/mde.3391?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Francis, Jennifer & LaFond, Ryan & Olsson, Per & Schipper, Katherine, 2005. "The market pricing of accruals quality," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 295-327, June.
    2. Bergstresser, Daniel & Philippon, Thomas, 2006. "CEO incentives and earnings management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 511-529, June.
    3. Chowdhury, Abu & Mollah, Sabur & Al Farooque, Omar, 2018. "Insider-trading, discretionary accruals and information asymmetry," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 341-363.
    4. Yermack, David, 1997. "Good Timing: CEO Stock Option Awards and Company News Announcements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 449-476, June.
    5. Salma S. Ibrahim, 2009. "The Usefulness of Measures of Consistency of Discretionary Components of Accruals in the Detection of Earnings Management," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(9‐10), pages 1087-1116, November.
    6. Salma S. Ibrahim, 2009. "The Usefulness of Measures of Consistency of Discretionary Components of Accruals in the Detection of Earnings Management," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(9-10), pages 1087-1116.
    7. Ozili, Peterson K, 2021. "Accounting and financial reporting during a pandemic," MPRA Paper 105183, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Jones, Jj, 1991. "Earnings Management During Import Relief Investigations," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 193-228.
    9. Patricia M. Dechow & Amy P. Hutton & Jung Hoon Kim & Richard G. Sloan, 2012. "Detecting Earnings Management: A New Approach," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 275-334, May.
    10. Zeeshan Mahmood & Rehana Kouser & Md. Abdul Kaium Masud, 2019. "An emerging economy perspective on corporate sustainability reporting – main actors’ views on the current state of affairs in Pakistan," Asian Journal of Sustainability and Social Responsibility, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 1-31, December.
    11. Kasznik, R, 1999. "On the association between voluntary disclosure and earnings management," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 57-81.
    12. Kothari, S.P. & Leone, Andrew J. & Wasley, Charles E., 2005. "Performance matched discretionary accrual measures," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 163-197, February.
    13. Viral V. Acharya & Bart M. Lambrecht, 2015. "A Theory of Income Smoothing When Insiders Know More Than Outsiders," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(9), pages 2534-2574.
    14. David F. Larcker & Scott A. Richardson, 2004. "Fees Paid to Audit Firms, Accrual Choices, and Corporate Governance," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 625-658, June.
    15. Sam Bock Park & Sung-Kyoo Kim & Sangryul Lee, 2021. "Earnings Management of Insolvent Firms and the Prediction of Corporate Defaults via Discretionary Accruals," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-24, March.
    16. Hai Yen Pham & Richard Yiu‐Ming Chung & Eduardo Roca & Ben‐Hsien Bao, 2019. "Discretionary accruals: signalling or earnings management in Australia?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 59(2), pages 1383-1413, June.
    17. Bagnoli, Mark & Watts, Susan G., 2000. "The effect of relative performance evaluation on earnings management: a game-theoretic approach," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(4-5), pages 377-397.
    18. Su-Jane Hsieh & Yuli Su & Chun-Chia Amy Chang, 2020. "The role of discretionary pension accruals in earnings management," Journal of Applied Accounting Research, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 22(1), pages 1-21, September.
    19. Andrew B. Jackson, 2018. "Discretionary Accruals: Earnings Management ... or Not?," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 54(2), pages 136-153, June.
    20. Massimo Massa & Bohui Zhang & Hong Zhang, 2015. "The Invisible Hand of Short Selling: Does Short Selling Discipline Earnings Management?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(6), pages 1701-1736.
    21. Healy, Paul M., 1985. "The effect of bonus schemes on accounting decisions," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1-3), pages 85-107, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dechow, Patricia & Ge, Weili & Schrand, Catherine, 2010. "Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 344-401, December.
    2. Yu Flora Kuang, 2008. "Performance-vested Stock Options and Earnings Management," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(9-10), pages 1049-1078.
    3. Yu Flora Kuang, 2008. "Performance‐vested Stock Options and Earnings Management," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(9‐10), pages 1049-1078, November.
    4. Ioannis Dokas & Christos Leontidis & Nicolaos Eriotis & Konstantinos Hazakis, 2021. "Earnings Management. An overview of the relative literature," Bulletin of Applied Economics, Risk Market Journals, vol. 8(2), pages 25-55.
    5. Christiane Pott & Tobias Tebben & Christoph Watrin, 2014. "The effect of outside directors’ and auditors’ incentives on managers’ ability to manage cash bonuses," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 18(2), pages 505-540, May.
    6. Chowdhury, Abu & Mollah, Sabur & Al Farooque, Omar, 2018. "Insider-trading, discretionary accruals and information asymmetry," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 341-363.
    7. repec:mth:ijafr8:v:8:y:2018:i:2:p:1-25 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Ferrer García, Cristina & Laínez Gadea, José Antonio, 2013. "Detectando diferencias en la medición de la calidad del resultado: evidencia empírica para empresas españolas || Detecting Differences on the Earnings Quality Measurement: Empirical Evidence on Spanis," Revista de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa = Journal of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, vol. 16(1), pages 5-28, December.
    9. Yu, Fang (Frank), 2008. "Analyst coverage and earnings management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 245-271, May.
    10. Sarowar Hossain & Jenny Jing Wang, 2023. "Abnormal audit fees and audit quality: Australian evidence," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 48(3), pages 596-624, August.
    11. Rajiv D. Banker & Dmitri Byzalov & Shunlan Fang & Byunghoon Jin, 2020. "Operating asymmetries and non-linear spline correction in discretionary accrual models," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 803-850, April.
    12. Susana Callao & José I. Jarne & David Wróblewski, 2017. "Why Do Companies From Emerging Countries Manage Earnings?," Eurasian Journal of Business and Management, Eurasian Publications, vol. 5(2), pages 60-84.
    13. Allayannis, George & Simko, Paul J., 2022. "Discretionary earnings smoothing, credit quality, and firm value," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    14. Justin J. Hopkins & Edward L. Maydew & Mohan Venkatachalam, 2015. "Corporate General Counsel and Financial Reporting Quality," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 129-145, January.
    15. Yangyang Chen & C. S. Agnes Cheng & Shuo Li & Jingran Zhao, 2021. "The monitoring role of the media: Evidence from earnings management," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3-4), pages 533-563, March.
    16. Ramesh Chandra Das & Chandra Sekhar Mishra & Prabina Rajib, 2017. "Real Versus Accrual-based Earnings Management," Paradigm, , vol. 21(2), pages 156-174, December.
    17. Dichev, Ilia D. & Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Rajgopal, Shiva, 2013. "Earnings quality: Evidence from the field," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 1-33.
    18. Pelucio-Grecco, Marta Cristina & Geron, Cecília Moraes Santostaso & Grecco, Gerson Begas & Lima, João Paulo Cavalcante, 2014. "The effect of IFRS on earnings management in Brazilian non-financial public companies," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 42-66.
    19. Christian Calmès & Denis Cormier & Francois Éric Racicot & Raymond Théoret, 2012. "Firms' Accruals and Tobin’s q," RePAd Working Paper Series UQO-DSA-wp032012, Département des sciences administratives, UQO.
    20. Demetris Christodoulou & Le Ma & Andrey Vasnev, 2018. "Inference†in†residuals as an Estimation Method for Earnings Management," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 54(2), pages 154-180, June.
    21. Sarowar Hossain & Gary S. Monroe, 2015. "Chief Financial Officers’ Short- and Long-term Incentive-based Compensation and Earnings Management," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 25(3), pages 279-291, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:mgtdec:v:43:y:2022:i:2:p:431-439. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/7976 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.