Det finns en mängd forskning kring hur Earnings Management uppstår och hur incitament till Earnings Management kan uppkomma. Gemensamt för denna forskning är att företagsledningen försöker möta utomstående krav och förväntningar på företagets finansiella prestation. Dessa krav och förväntningar resulterar i incitament för företagsledningen att göra subjektiva bedömningar av intäkter, kostnader och periodiseringar för att på så sätt manipulera resultatet. För att kontrollera bokföringen och redovisningskvaliteten anlitas en revisor som kontrollerar, rådgör och hjälper företaget och dess intressenter att säkerställa att redovisningen är korrekt och ger ett tillräckligt underlag för att fatta ekonomiska beslut. EU har sedan sommaren 2016 en ny standard som kräver revisorsrotation var tionde år för alla företag registrerade i dess medlemsländer. Studier har gjorts i hur detta påverkar revisionskvaliteten hos företag i USA och övriga Europa, något som inte gjorts i samma utsträckning i Sverige. Den här studien ämnar att ge en bredare kunskapsbild i hur en sådan standard kan komma att påverka den ekonomiska redovisningen. Tidigare forskning visar att Earnings Management förekommer, även om forskningen koncentrerat sig på USA och de stora ekonomierna i Europa. Genom en kvalitativ studie av 154 företag med insamlad data för åren 2011-2015 har graden av Earnings Management undersökts genom att separera icke-diskretionära, godtyckliga, periodiseringar från totala periodiseringar. För att beräkna detta har The Modified Jones Model använts och förekomsten av Earnings Management undersöks under åren 2013-2015. Studiens resultat visar att Earnings Management förekommer i svenska börsnoterade bolag. Vidare visar studien att det förekommer skillnader i förekomst av Earnings Management beroende på vilket revisionsbolag som anlitats. Förslag till vidare forskning lämnas för att vidare undersöka hur införandet av den nya standarden i EU kan komma att påverka Earnings Management, redovisnings,- och revisionskvaliteten i Sverige.

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This research aims to explore and identify empirically the perceptions of Libyan Commercial Banks’ (LCBs) stakeholders about earnings management and its impact on the quality of financial reporting. The study examines the occurrence of earnings management and the techniques that are used to manage LCBs’ earnings by first investigating the understanding of LCBs’ stakeholders about the term earnings management. The study also examines perceptions of the motivations behind LCBs’ managers being engaged in earnings management, as well as the perceived conditions that enable LCBs’ managers to manage their earnings. Finally the study examines stakeholders’ perceptions about the controls by which earnings management may be mitigated. The results of the study are interpreted through an accountability perspective. The study uses semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey with wide groups of stakeholders’ LCBs. The findings of this study reveal a range of views regarding the quality of financial reporting between different stakeholders groups, and also within the individual groups. This finding may refer to a serious problem within the accountability relationship of the LCBs. The results findings also reveal that the term ‘earnings management’ is not understood consistently by different stakeholders in Libya. The findings also suggest the existence of earnings management in LCBs’ financial reporting using various techniques e.g. especially the loan loss provision. The motivations of earnings management practices as revealed by the study findings are consistent with those reported in the literature. Earnings management is perceived as an unethical practice by most of the LCBs’ stakeholders but there are exceptions to this view. Earnings management could be reduced, according to the perceptions of LCBs’ stakeholders, by adopting IFRS, applying better corporate governance, and enhancing the role of the external auditor.

We investigate if firms close to entering, or exiting, a market capitalization list is more prone to manage their earnings upwards than other firms, due to the benefits of the extra liquidity and media coverage gained from being listed on a ‘larger’ list. In order to measure the level of earnings management in our focal firms we use the discretionary accruals as proxy with the Jones Model (1991) as base. Overall, the focal firms had higher discretionary accrual values. When correcting for size- and performance effect, we obtained significant results at a 10 % level that our focal firms manage their earnings in a wider extent. Also, firms close to the Small/Midcap border manage their earnings in a wider extent than the other firms listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange.

There is international trend for the enterprises to develop to business groups. There are more and more large-sized or medium-sized business groups in Taiwan. However, the groups¡¦ diversification strategies often result in high risks. Especially the unrelated diversification. The Management has a motivation to do the earnings management when dealing with the non-core business. If the earnings quality is manipulated by the management, it will cause the investors to ignore the risk which diversification strategy will bring. So far, there is no research about the the impact of earnings management on medium-sized business group. The purpose of this research is to examine whether medium-sized business groups¡¦ management has a motivation to make earnings management. The results show that¡G 1. There are no direct relationships between related diversification, unrelated diversification and earnings management. It is considered that medium-sized group business probably be family enterprises with centralized shareholding. The management doesn¡¦t have strong intention to make earnings management. 2. Debt/Equity has positive correlation on earnings management. The creditor often has restriction to minimum working capital and highest-level liability ratio of the borrower. The management has a motivation to choose appropriate accounting principle to correspond with the each given financial ratio.

This study examines whether board independence is an effective corporate governance mechanism in reducing earnings management in China, a country with significantly different institutional and legal characteristics from the Anglo-Saxon countries. I investigate: (i) whether voluntary adoption of board independence prior to the China Regulatory Securities Commission (CSRC) regulation on board independence is associated with lower earnings management; and (ii) the extent to which the CSRC regulation is effective in achieving the aim of inhibiting earnings management. I employ two stage least squares techniques to control for potential simultaneity problems between earnings management and board independence and documents that failing to control for such problems will lead to biased and inconsistent estimates. Using three different measures of earnings management, I show that firms that voluntarily move towards board independence (i) have lower levels of discretionary accruals; (ii) employ less severe income smoothing strategies; and (iii) are less likely to manage return on equity to meet regulatory thresholds. In contrast, firms adopting board independence following the CSRC regulation in 2002 do not experience any changes in the levels of earnings management before and after the regulation. These results suggest that regulation alone is not a sufficient solution to motivate effective independent boards.

I denna uppsats studeras svenska börsnoterade bolags tendenser till resultatmanipulering. I uppsatsen undersöks huruvida kvartalsvisa resultatmönster kan indikera förekomsten av resultatmanipulering. Uppsatsen undersöker även om bolagsstorlek, baserat på totala tillgångar, är en parameter som bidrar till ökad användning av resultatmanipulering. Via den modifierade Jonesmodellen görs beräkningar för att besvara studiens syfte. Resultat av studien visar att graden av icke godtyckliga periodiseringar inte skiljer sig åt mellan räkenskapsårets kvartal. Vad gäller bolagsstorlek presenteras indikationer på att stora bolag tycks manipulera periodiseringar i större utsträckning än små bolag.

This thesis investigates whether firms use real activities manipulation for income-decreasing earnings management purposes. Managers can use different tools to manage earnings. Given that managers have the authority to apply their own judgment in the preparation of financial reports and to make decision about business activities of their incumbent companies, the opportunity to manipulate earnings is twofold: the first is to manipulate financial reports using accounting techniques and the second is to manipulate underlying transactions. After the introduction of new regulations that were meant to restrict accounting choice as a response to high-profile accounting scandals at the turn of the century, there has been growing literature on the use of real activities manipulation for earnings management. While more control over financial reporting can potentially reduce earnings management through accounting choice, as real activities manipulation concerns non-accounting decisions of management, tighter accounting standards are not able to restrict manipulation of activities. This shift toward real activities manipulation is supported by empirical evidence. Whilst prior studies indicate that managers have incentives for both income-increasing and income-decreasing earnings management, the overwhelming majority of authors have concentrated on income-increasing attempts. However, one would expect that real activities manipulation would also be used for income-decreasing purposes. This study links two lines of research in the area of earnings management; downward earnings management and earnings management through real activities manipulation. Using a large sample of US firms for the period 2002-2011, the present thesis examines whether and how real activities manipulation is used for income-decreasing earnings management. To this end, firms that substantially outperformed their last year performance, or suspect firms, which are considered as more likely to exhibit income-decreasing earnings management are compared with the rest of the sample in terms of various measures of real activities manipulation. The results indicate that firms with extra earnings by the end of third quarter of fiscal year manage earnings downward by means of real activities including sales, production and discretionary expenses. The results are generally robust to a number of sensitivity tests.

It is common for managers to manipulate their earnings to get a desired result. For example,many people use income smoothing to make financial reports more comprehensible to stakeholders. The problem, however, is that self-interest often takes over, which means that managers use earnings management to increase their own profits instead of helping stakeholders, which leads to a misleading result for them.This is explained more thoroughly in positive accounting theory (PAT). The theory states that managers' accounting choices can be explained by their self-interest. Within PAT, the political cost hypothesis is also presented. The hypothesis explains the correlation between companysize and earnings management. The hypothesis explains that large companies use more earnings management to avoid unwanted attention from society. This is because the demand from society increases when the company size gets bigger. It is on the basis of this hypothesis that this empirical study was created. The aim of this quantitative study has been to conduct a comparison between small and large companies on the Swedish stock exchange market. The purpose of this was to see if there is a correlation between company size and the use of earnings management. Data was collected from the year 2020, which was affected by the corona pandemic and a low economic growth. Since many earnings management models have been criticized, this study used a model presented by Vladu, Amat and Cuzdriorean (2017). Data was also collected from three control variables to ensure that company size is in fact thesurvey´s independent variable. These are ROA, solidity, and the number of board members. The results of the study showed that there was no significant connection between company size and the use of earnings management. The study found that the use of earnings management in financial reports had a correlation with the variable ROA at a 90% significance level. These findings can’t confirm the political cost hypothesis. However, the study found that the correlation between ROA and earnings management could be explained by the agency theory.The theory depicts the information a symmetry that exists between shareholders and managers.

This thesis presents two essays on real earnings management and future performance. The first essay draws on empirical studies that examine the three types of real earnings management activities in the United Kingdom (UK) for firms that are more likely to manipulate their earnings to avoid missing earnings targets. These targets include the zero earnings, and last year’s earnings. Also drawing from empirical studies, the second essay investigates the impact of real earnings management on firms’ future operating performance in the UK. In the first essay, I examine earnings management through real activities manipulation by using a sample of UK firms over the period 2009-2013. According to the transaction cost theory and opportunistic perspective of earnings management, the results of the first essay reveal that managers in UK suspect firm-years that manage earnings upward utilise more real earnings management activities to achieve earnings benchmarks opportunistically. Specifically, I find that (1) firms which manage upward earnings have unusually low cash flows from operations by offering price discounts or/and more lenient credit terms to increase sales; (2) firms that manage upward earnings have unusually low discretionary expenditures by cutting/reducing expenditures spending to improve reported margin and (3) firms which manage upward earnings, incur unusually high production costs by producing more products to report lower costs of goods sold in order to achieve their targets. Further, I find evidence that UK firms’ meeting/beating earnings benchmarks around zero earnings and last year’s earnings engage in sales-based manipulation and reducing/cutting discretionary expenses simultaneously; they also engage in overproducing products and reducing discretionary expenses at the same time. Furthermore, I do not find, however, evidence that managers in UK firms are associated with high real earnings management through sales-based manipulation to meet/beat last year’s earnings. On the other hand, I find evidence that manager in UK firms engage in income-increasing earnings management through accounting choice (e.g., accrual-based earnings management) to meet an earnings target. Motivated by agency conflicts of real earnings management (e.g., opportunistic and signalling perspectives), the second essay investigates whether there is an association between UK firms that manipulate their business operations to meet earnings benchmarks (e.g., zero earnings, last year’s earnings) and subsequent operating performance. I implement Fama and MacBeth’s (1973) regression analysis to examine the effects of the magnitude of real earnings management on firms’ future performance. Empirical test results show that manipulation of operating activities such as sales, discretionary expenditures, and production costs to meet earnings benchmarks has a significant positive consequence for firms’ subsequent operating performance and signals firms’ good future performance. Further, I find evidence that firms that manipulate their operating activities in the absence of meeting/beating earnings benchmarks experience a decline in their subsequent operating performance. The findings of this research lend support to our understanding of the process that management follows to evaluate costs and benefits of real earnings management.