IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jaecon/v51y2011i1-2p171-185.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Target ratcheting and effort reduction

Author

Listed:
  • Bouwens, Jan
  • Kroos, Peter

Abstract

In this paper, we examine how retail store managers reduce their sales activity in response to target ratcheting. We find that managers with favorable sales performance in the first three quarters reduce their sales activity in the final quarter. We also document that managers who engage in sales reducing activities enhance their likelihood of meeting their next-year sales target, which is based on their current sales. That is, managers who reduce their sales activity in the final quarter are more likely to beat their next-year sales targets than managers who refrain from reducing their final-quarter sales.

Suggested Citation

  • Bouwens, Jan & Kroos, Peter, 2011. "Target ratcheting and effort reduction," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1-2), pages 171-185, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:51:y:2011:i:1-2:p:171-185
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165-4101(10)00031-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Oyer, 1998. "Fiscal Year Ends and Nonlinear Incentive Contracts: The Effect on Business Seasonality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(1), pages 149-185.
    2. Martin L. Weitzman, 1980. "The "Ratchet Principle" and Performance Incentives," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 11(1), pages 302-308, Spring.
    3. Roychowdhury, Sugata, 2006. "Earnings management through real activities manipulation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 335-370, December.
    4. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    5. Holthausen, Robert W. & Larcker, David F. & Sloan, Richard G., 1995. "Annual bonus schemes and the manipulation of earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 29-74, February.
    6. Murphy, Kevin J., 2000. "Performance standards in incentive contracts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 245-278, December.
    7. Leone, Andrew J. & Rock, Steve, 2002. "Empirical tests of budget ratcheting and its effect on managers' discretionary accrual choices," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 43-67, February.
    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. Godsell, David & Huang, Kelly & Lao, Brent, 2023. "Managers’ rank & file employee coordination costs and real activities manipulation," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    2. Jan Bouwens & Peter Kroos, 2017. "The Interplay Between Forward-Looking Measures and Target Setting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(9), pages 2868-2884, September.
    3. Cannon, James N. & Lamboy-Ruiz, Melvin A. & Watanabe, Olena V., 2022. "Ownership type and earnings management in U.S. hospitals," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    4. 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.
    5. Shota Otomasa & Atsushi Shiiba & Akinobu Shuto, 2015. "Management Earnings Forecasts as a Performance Target in Executive Compensation Contracts," CARF F-Series CARF-F-368, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    6. Fisher, Joseph G. & Frederickson, James R. & Peffer, Sean A., 2006. "Budget negotiations in multi-period settings," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 511-528, August.
    7. 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.
    8. Armstrong, Christopher S. & Guay, Wayne R. & Weber, Joseph P., 2010. "The role of information and financial reporting in corporate governance and debt contracting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 179-234, December.
    9. Richard Frankel & Hagit Levy & Ron Shalev, 2017. "Factors Associated with the Year-End Decline in Working Capital," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(2), pages 438-458, February.
    10. Murphy, Kevin J., 2000. "Performance standards in incentive contracts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 245-278, December.
    11. Mian, Rehman U. & Irfan, Saadia & Mian, Affan, 2023. "Foreign institutional investment horizon and earnings management: Evidence from around the world," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    12. Jo, Eun Hye & Lee, Jung Wha, 2024. "Economic policy uncertainty and managerial short-termism," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    13. Chang Liu & Chune Young Chung & Hong Kee Sul & Kainan Wang, 2018. "Does hometown advantage matter? The case of institutional blockholder monitoring on earnings management in Korea," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 49(2), pages 196-221, February.
    14. Belal Ali Abdulraheem Ghaleb & Shaker Dahan Al-Duais & Abdulwahid Ahmed Hashed, 2021. "Audit Committee Chair s Legal Expertise and Real Activities Manipulation: Empirical Evidence from Malaysian Energy and Utilities Sectors," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 11(1), pages 65-73.
    15. Craig J. Chapman & Thomas J. Steenburgh, 2011. "An Investigation of Earnings Management Through Marketing Actions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(1), pages 72-92, January.
    16. Hu, Juncheng, 2021. "Do facilitation payments affect earnings management? Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    17. Chih-Yang Tseng, 2020. "Family firms and long-term orientation of SG&A expenditures," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 1181-1206, November.
    18. Pascal Courty & Gerald Marschke, 2004. "An Empirical Investigation of Gaming Responses to Explicit Performance Incentives," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(1), pages 23-56, January.
    19. Delfgaauw, Josse & Souverijn, Michiel, 2016. "Biased supervision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 107-125.
    20. Edward P. Lazear & Paul Oyer, 2012. "Personnel Economics [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • M40 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - General

    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:eee:jaecon:v:51:y:2011:i:1-2:p:171-185. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jae .

    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.