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This study aims to understand the impact of market power and competition on earnings management, particularly discretionary accruals, in the Chinese and Taiwanese tourism industries. China and Taiwan differ not only in their political and social systems but also in their economic systems. The research aims to provide managers and investors with stock selection strategy in the decision-making process.

Accounting data consisted of 60 publicly traded travel companies in China and Taiwan from 2000 to 2014. Methodology included correlation matrix for the variables, univariate and multivariate regression and competition analysis.

Based on empirical results, the authors found a significant negative correlation between market power and discretionary accruals and market concentration (or lower market competition) and discretionary accruals in both the Chinese or Taiwanese markets. Although the Chinese travel companies enjoyed higher market power and market concentration, they engaged in less earnings manipulation than their Taiwanese counterparts as a result of the Chinese Government regulation.

Based on listed travel companies, generalization of the research results to entire tourism industry is limited. This study compares the travel companies’ practices of smoothing out earnings between China and Taiwan, thus helping managers and investors in making their financing, investment decisions.

This research contributes to the earnings management literature by examining a specific industry of tourism. This paper is original in two ways. The authors linked market power and market competition with earnings management simultaneously and then compared the Chinese and Taiwanese tourism industries in manipulating earnings.

The purpose of this study is to examine both accruals and real earnings management in a large sample of private companies in the UK using data from 2002 to 2009 following the implementation of the UK Act of 2006.

A panel data analysis using GMM has been adopted to examine the objectives of the study and answer the research questions.

The results of this study showed that the imposition of the Companies Act of 2006, on its own, did lead to changes in earnings management behaviour, in both accruals-based earnings and real earnings management. Moreover, this study also found that firms that chose to provide IFRS financial statements tended to show less discretionary earnings management, however, it tended to have no impact on real earnings management.

In accordance with the research findings, standard setters with some insight tend to determine how capital markets see the information provided under the legislation such as the UK Act of 2006 in developed countries and thereby ensure long-term sustainability in a modern and sophisticated financial world. This study provides an insight into the successful implementation of the UK act of 2006, and its influence on the aspect of financial reporting.

The novel conclusion reached in the study is that there exists a strong and direct link between the smooth implementation of UK Act of 2006 and the practices of both accruals and real earnings management in real-world business and financial scenarios, particularly, in private companies.

This paper examines the relationship between poison pills, real earnings management and initial public offering (IPO) failure.

The authors sampled 2,997 IPO firms that went public during 1993-2015.

The authors find that IPO firms manipulate earnings upward using real earnings management. The authors also find that IPO firms exhibiting a higher level of real earnings management have a higher probability of IPO failure. In addition, the authors find that weak shareholders' governance is positively associated with IPO failure.

These results suggest that poor governance structures in failed firms open the door to manipulating real activities and increasing operational risk.

The study findings are of most significant interest to potential investors and other stakeholders affiliated with a firm going public, an auditor, an underwriter, the lawyers who consult with the firm and employees or executives who might consider joining that firm.

This study aims to examines both accrual and real-based earnings management (EM) behavior of listed corporations in tax-free countries during different economic situations. It also addresses the link between firm- and country-level determinants of accrual and real-based EM and explores economic conditions' influence on these determinants.

The study examines 1,608 firm-years, covers sixteen years (2004–2019), clustered into three periods according to the global financial crisis (GFC): four years prior (2004–2007), two years during (2008–2009), and ten years post the GFC (2010–2019). We employ the modified Jones model (performance-matched) developed by Kothari et al. (2005) to measure the accrual-based EM (positive and negative discretionary accrual EM) and the three levels model for Dechow et al. (1998) to measure the real-based EM (cash flow from operating, discretionary expenses and abnormal production cost).

The study finds a significant increase in EM practices in the listed corporations in tax-free countries during the economic downturn. These corporations are found to understate their earnings during the economic stress period. Simultaneously, the firm-level determinants of EM practices were at the same level of significance during different economic conditions in accrual-based EM. In contrast, the country-level EM determinants vary based on the economic conditions.

Financial reports' users gain a deep understanding of the quality of financial reports in the context of tax-free country. And, the study outcomes inspire policymakers to develop relevant legislation to mitigate financial reports' risk and adequately protect the financial reports' users.

This study discovers the relation between corporate governance factors and earnings quality and finds that increases in dividends and foreign ownership deter earnings management. The author shows that dividend increases and foreign ownership enhance earnings quality, but they appear to be substitutes in that role. In other words, as foreign ownership increases, the influence of dividends in increasing earnings quality decreases. Improving transparency through dividend increases and monitoring by foreign institutional investors are substitutes in preventing earnings management.

This study examines whether Brazilian health insurance companies (HICs) engage in earnings management through discretionary accruals or operational decisions by refraining from reporting a low indicator of sustainability in the market (IDSM).

The study used the Jones and Modified Jones models to identify earnings management through discretionary accruals and used the model described by Roychowdhury to estimate the abnormal behaviors of operational decisions. Data covering 2012 to 2018 were collected from the ANS website.

The results show that HICs engaged in earnings management to avoid reporting a low IDSM. The findings should help health insurance clients make decisions regarding the purchase or change of health insurance. The findings should also encourage regulators to improve their evaluation of the economic and financial risks around HICs.

The National Agency of Supplementary Health (ANS) established a qualification program for HICs, monitoring them based on a set of indicators. Managers may have an incentive to use earnings management to obtain indices that meet the requirements of the ANS qualification program in order to avoid showing signs of abnormality.

本研究旨在探討巴西的醫療保險公司，透過避免報導低的市場可持續性指標，是以裁決性應計，抑或是以操作決策來進行盈餘管理。

國立輔助醫療辦事處 (註：此為直譯)(The National Agency of Supplementary Health)為醫療保險公司建立了一個資格檢定機制，基於一套指標來監管這些公司。公司主管或會有鼓勵性的誘因去使用盈餘管理來取得符合國立輔助醫療辦事處資格檢定機制所要求的指標，從而避免顯示異常的跡象。

本研究使用Jones 模型及Modified Jones模型，透過裁決性應計來辨認盈餘管理，研究亦使用羅伊喬杜里 (Roychowdhury) 描述的模型， 來估計操作決策的異常行為。數據取自國立輔助醫療辦事處的網址，並涵蓋2012年至2018年期間。

研究結果顯示，醫療保險公司進行盈餘管理，以求避免報導低的市場可持續性指標。研究結果應可幫助醫療保險客戶在購買或更改醫療保險時作適當的決定。研究結果亦可鼓勵監管者改善他們對醫療保險公司的經濟及財務風險所作的評估。

This study aims to identify and compare the measurement models of earnings management (EM) appropriate to the Iranian Islamic banking system. The importance of reported profit figures has motivated business executives, who also perform financial reporting, to manipulate these figures. These measures are referred to as “earnings management,” which negatively influence the quality of reported earnings and financial statements' reliability.

In this study, four methods, namely, Jones (1991), modified Jones (Dechow et al., 1995), Kasznik (1999) and Kothari et al. (2005), were used to measure the EM index in 25 Iranian Islamic banks (IBs) registered with the Tehran Stock Exchange and/or the Central Bank of Iran. The study covered the period 2005–2020. Following the aforementioned methods, this research implemented templates that were repeatedly tested in subsequent studies using accruals to discover EM.

The results show that the Kasznik (1999) model is the preferred and compatible model with the Iranian Islamic banking system's accrual behaviour due to the consistency of the measurement coefficients with theoretical and previous research findings. Therefore, total accruals, including discretionary accruals and non-discretionary accruals, have the most correspondence with (1) property, machinery and equipment; (2) the change in cash flow from operating activities; and (3) the difference of change in revenue (ΔREV) and change in net receivable accounts (ΔREC).

This is the first investigation in the Iranian Islamic banking system. The research contributes to the Iranian Islamic banking system literature on the implements of EM, which could be appealed to in the context of developing countries like Iran. Finally, this study highlights the different EM capabilities in Islamic banking systems similar to the Iranian banking arrangement.

As the influence of institutional investors over managerial decision-making grows, so does the importance of understanding the effect of institutional investor ownership (IO) on firm outcomes. The authors take a comprehensive approach to studying the effect of IO on earnings management (EM).

The authors study the relation between IO and EM using a sample of 59,503 listed U.S. firm-year observations from 1981–2019. The authors proxy EM with earnings surprises and with accrual-based and real activity measures. The authors test for nonlinear relations and analyze changes resulting from the passage of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act.

The findings support a positive IO-EM relation overall, but show that the relation is dynamic and heavily context-dependent with evidence of nonlinearity. The authors also find evidence that IO positively affects accrual-based EM and real activities EM negatively.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of the IO-EM relation to consider evidence of nonlinearity in the U.S. context, measuring changes to the relation over time, and with the use of several measures of EM.

Foreign exchange losess bear some pressures for numerous companies in Indonesia particularly for those having liabilities denominated in foreign currencies. This occurs when Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) current exchange rate has weakened against foreign currencies. Related to those phenomenon, this study aims to investigate model earnings management actions using foreign exchange losses (FEL) which provides a method for the detection of earnings management. By employing a quantitative approach, this study used secondary data of financial statements. The data were collected from 50 companies with the largest market capitalisation, 50 of the most active companies based on trading volume, 50 of the most active companies based on the value of trade and 50 of the most active companies by frequency trading. Totally, 200 public companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange were gained as the data based on IDX statistical report 2013. The results identify that FEL model is capable to detect earnings management from a transaction in foreign exchange losses. However, the model cannot capture the phenomenon of earnings management if the company does not own or reported long-term debt and profit/loss on foreign exchange. To prove whether the manager will perform earnings management from FEL, it is suggested to conduct further research using the hypothesis of positive accounting theory (PAT).

This paper explores the relationship between earnings management and firms' value through the moderating effect of the missing elements – corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and state ownership in Russian companies. The main argument of the paper is that CSR disclosure can be used as a mitigating mechanism to weaken the negative relationship between earnings manipulation and market value. Additionally test whether state ownership is an important moderating factor in this relationship are conducted as state has always played an important role in the emerging Russian market.

The hypotheses are tested on panel data for 223 publicly listed Russian firms for the period 2012–2018. A number of robustness tests are used to check the obtained results for consistency. Following previous research GMM method is employed to address endogeneity concerns.

Supported by stakeholder theory, it is observed that firms that disclosed more CSR information experience a weaker negative relationship between earnings management and market value because investors and other stakeholders positively evaluate a positive CSR image. This negative effect of earnings management on market value is even weaker for state-owned companies as market participants appreciate involvement of state-owned companies in CSR activities and place greater expectations on these firms to be responsible without clear understanding whether these actions are “window dressing” for this type of companies or not.

The study results provide new insights into the relation between earnings management, firm's value, CSR disclosure and state ownership in emerging-market firms. The paper highlight the importance of considering country-specific factors, such as state ownership, while analysing the market reaction on CSR disclosure and earnings management since the institutional peculiarities may help to explain differences in the obtained results.