IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijfss/v11y2023i2p81-d1175600.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Management’s Discretionary Assessments of Goodwill Impairments—Evidence from STOXX Europe 600

Author

Listed:
  • Frode Kjærland

    (NTNU Business School, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway)

  • Kristian Forbord

    (NTNU Business School, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway)

  • Are Oust

    (NTNU Business School, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway)

  • Håkon Stephani

    (NTNU Business School, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway)

Abstract

The main issues of accounting reporting regarding goodwill are whether a firm’s management reliably conveys their private information about future earnings, and whether they disclose value-relevant and useful information to accounting users. In the current International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) regulations, the goodwill impairment test is based on management’s discretionary assessments. This study examines how goodwill impairment is reported under IFRS considering company- and industry-specific economic factors, proxies for earnings management, and macroeconomic crisis years. We extend previous research using tobit and logit regressions by employing a fixed-effects model. This approach is possible because of a panel dataset comprising 449 of 600 active companies sampled from the STOXX Europe 600 index from 2005 to 2018. We find that goodwill impairments are largely concentrated in certain companies, industries, and years. The regression models show a significant negative correlation between companies’ return on total assets and goodwill impairments. Moreover, we discover that goodwill impairments have a significant positive correlation with goodwill intensity, debt ratio, and the proxy for reporting a one-off big bath charge. In addition, we find that the global financial crisis in 2008–2009 and the European debt crisis in 2011 differ significantly from other fiscal years.

Suggested Citation

  • Frode Kjærland & Kristian Forbord & Are Oust & Håkon Stephani, 2023. "Management’s Discretionary Assessments of Goodwill Impairments—Evidence from STOXX Europe 600," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-26, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijfss:v:11:y:2023:i:2:p:81-:d:1175600
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7072/11/2/81/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7072/11/2/81/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hausman, Jerry, 2015. "Specification tests in econometrics," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 38(2), pages 112-134.
    2. Henry Jarva, 2009. "Do Firms Manage Fair Value Estimates? An Examination of SFAS 142 Goodwill Impairments," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(9-10), pages 1059-1086.
    3. Neerav Nagar & Kaustav Sen, 2017. "Do financially distressed firms misclassify core expenses?," Accounting Research Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 30(2), pages 205-223, July.
    4. Henry Jarva, 2009. "Do Firms Manage Fair Value Estimates? An Examination of SFAS 142 Goodwill Impairments," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(9‐10), pages 1059-1086, November.
    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. Andrei Filip & Thomas Jeanjean & Luc Paugam, 2015. "Using Real Activities to Avoid Goodwill Impairment Losses: Evidence and Effect on Future Performance," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3-4), pages 515-554, April.
    2. Henry Jarva, 2014. "Economic consequences of SFAS 142 goodwill write-offs," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 54(1), pages 211-235, March.
    3. Amer Qasim & Ayman E. Haddad & Naser M. AbuGhazaleh, 2013. "Goodwill Accounting In The United Kingdom: The Effect Of International Financial Reporting Standards," Review of Business and Finance Studies, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 4(1), pages 63-78.
    4. Wen, He & Moehrle, Stephen R., 2016. "Accounting for goodwill: An academic literature review and analysis to inform the debate," Research in Accounting Regulation, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 11-21.
    5. Bartłomiej Lisicki, 2021. "Impairment of Assets and Market Reaction during COVID-19 Pandemic on the Example of WSE," Risks, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-21, October.
    6. Lale Guler, 2018. "Has SFAS 142 improved the usefulness of goodwill impairment loss and goodwill balances for investors?," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 559-592, July.
    7. George Emmanuel Iatridis & Daniel Senftlechner, 2014. "An Empirical Investigation of Goodwill in Austria: Evidence on Management Change and Cost of Capital," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 24(2), pages 171-181, June.
    8. Najlaa Kallousa & Youngki Jang & Boochun Jung & Hussein Warsame, 2023. "Labor unions and post‐acquisition integration capability: Evidence from goodwill impairment," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3-4), pages 764-794, March.
    9. Alshehabi, Ahmad & Georgiou, George & Ala, Alessandro S., 2021. "Country-specific drivers of the value relevance of goodwill impairment losses," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    10. Jarva, Henry & Kallunki, Juha-Pekka & Livne, Gilad, 2019. "Earnings performance measures and CEO turnover: Street versus GAAP earnings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 249-266.
    11. Suntharee Lhaopadchan, 2010. "Fair value accounting and intangible assets," Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 18(2), pages 120-130, May.
    12. Araceli Amorós Martínez & José Antonio Cavero Rubio, 2018. "The Economic Effects of IFRS Goodwill Reporting," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 28(3), pages 309-322, September.
    13. Côme Segrétain & Denis Cormier, 2014. "Pertinence Du Goodwill Acquis Au Regard Des Resultats Residuels Nets Et Additionnels : Relation Theorique Et Etude Empirique Sur Le Marche Francais," Post-Print hal-01899436, HAL.
    14. Iatridis, George Emmanuel & Pappas, Kostas & Walker, Martin, 2022. "Narrative disclosure quality and the timeliness of goodwill impairments," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(2).
    15. Johannes Thesing & Patrick Velte, 2021. "Do fair value measurements affect accounting-based earnings quality? A literature review with a focus on corporate governance as moderator," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 91(7), pages 965-1004, September.
    16. Junyoup Lee & Eunsuh Lee & Kevin H. Kim & Daniel Gyung H. Paik, 2018. "Acquired In‐process Research Development and Earnings Management," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 28(4), pages 577-588, December.
    17. Hamberg, Mattias & Beisland, Leif-Atle, 2014. "Changes in the value relevance of goodwill accounting following the adoption of IFRS 3," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 59-73.
    18. Côme Segrétain, 2011. "Écarts d'acquisition, résultats résiduels consécutifs et surprix," Post-Print hal-00650581, HAL.
    19. Avallone, Francesco & Quagli, Alberto, 2015. "Insight into the variables used to manage the goodwill impairment test under IAS 36," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 107-114.
    20. Jonas Oliveira & Graça Azevedo & Bertina Oliveira, 2018. "Impairment Losses: The Impact of First‐time Adoption of the Accounting Standardisation System in Portugal," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 28(4), pages 556-576, December.

    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:gam:jijfss:v:11:y:2023:i:2:p:81-:d:1175600. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.