COMPARISON OF THE TERMS CREATIVE ACCOUNTING, EARNINGS MANAGEMENT AND FRAUDULENT ACCOUNTING THROUGH BIBLIOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS

Research background: The article focuses on the issues of creative accounting, earnings management, and fraudulent accounting, which are global phenomena. These concepts are well known globally, as they are dealt with by many world-renowned authors. In this study, we applied bibliometric analysis to these concepts to reveal their interconnectedness. The research was conducted on a sample of more than 19,000 articles. Purpose of the article: The main goal of the study is to use the VosViewer design and visualisation program to capture and record the most common terms associated with the terms, ‘creative accounting’, ‘revenue management’, and ‘fraudulent accounting’, and to show a biometric network of the most commonly used terms. Methods: To capture and illustrate important words associated with the above terms, the VosViewer program was used, which drew mind maps that represented the words and expressions that were closest to the topic. Scientific articles from the Web of Science database, which contains many world-class articles related to the topic, were used as input data. Findings & Value added: The results of the study provided an interesting insight into the keywords associated with the issues of creative accounting, revenue management, and fraudulent accounting. The results show that the keywords and phrases are related, as several of them are repeated in each of the terms mentioned. This means that, although these terms are different in nature, they are nevertheless connected by many words and phrases. However, it remains necessary to observe that each of the given terms appears on a different colour of fraud (white, grey, or black fraud).

Analysts’ reactions to firms’ real activities management

Purpose Firms’ real activities management (RAM) can have a more detrimental effect on firms’ future performance than accrual earnings management. This paper aims to examine whether analysts, who play an important role as information intermediaries, understand the negative effect of RAM on firms’ future performance and respond to it accordingly. Design/methodology/approach The authors investigate whether analysts lower their earnings forecasts and stock recommendations of the firms with RAM. The authors measure RAM by examining firms’ abnormal decreases in discretionary expenses, abnormal increases in production and abnormal decreases in cash flow from operations following prior literature. Findings The authors find that after controlling for earnings surprises and other important firm characteristics, analysts lower their forecasts of future annual earnings and stock recommendations of the firms that show signs of RAM. Research limitations/implications First, as in other RAM studies, the results in this study are subject to measurement errors inherent in the estimation of RAM (i.e. abnormal production costs, abnormal CFO and abnormal discretionary expenditures). Second, we include only firm-year observations that barely make positive income in our samples following the previous study. This sample selection criterion helps increase the power of the test by examining the “suspect firms group,” which are more likely to engage in earnings management. However, one can challenge that our findings on the association between RAM and analysts’ reactions could be only case-specific and cannot be generalized. Practical implications This study contributes to the literature on earnings management and especially on RAM. Specifically, none of the previous studies clearly examines whether analysts understand the negative impact of RAM on firms’ future performance and respond accordingly, although there are studies showing the negative association between RAM and firms’ future operating performance and studies showing the negative association between analysts following and RAM. Thus, filling the gap, this study provides a specific reason for the negative association between the analyst following and real earnings management presented in previous studies. Social implications The findings will be of interest to regulators, who are concerned about the potential negative consequences in which tighter accounting standards can result. For example, Ewert and Wagenhofer (2005) theoretically demonstrate that tighter accounting standards can prompt more RAM instead of accounting earnings management. The study provides important evidence supporting that such suboptimal operating activities are closely watched by analysts and are potentially penalized by the market. If the market is able to detect RAM and allocate fewer resources to the firms that engage in it, then the concerns associated with the substitution effect between accrual-based earnings management and RAM can be diminished. Originality/value Prior research suggests that tighter accounting regulations (e.g. the Sarbanes-Oxley Act) prompt more RAM than accounting earnings management. The study provides evidence supporting that such suboptimal operating activities are closely watched by analysts and are potentially penalized by the market.

Corporate Governance and Accounting Earnings Management: The Case of Tunisia

This paper aims to test the impact of some corporate governance characteristics on the management of the accounting earnings measured by discretionary accruals. As for the prior research we treat the level of management of accounting earnings as a "proxy" for the quality of the accounting and financial information published by companies. Empirical analysis is based on the modified Jones model (1995) to estimate discretionary accruals and a panel data model applied to a sample of 21 companies listed on the Tunis Stock Exchange (BVMT) over a period of 3 years from 2008 to 2010. The main findings of the current study reveal that, in the Tunisian context, the affiliation of auditors to a "Big" international network and the independence of the board of directors significantly constrain the practice of managing the accounting earnings and, consequently, they improve the quality of the published result. However, the number of independent members in the audit committee has a negative but not significant impact on the practice of earnings management, whereas the duration of the audit mandate does not affect this practice.Finally, the control variables taken into account in our study have a significant effect on the quality of the accounting result.Thus, the results of this study helped to improve our understanding of earnings management in Tunisian companies, with reference to some characteristics of corporate governance.

Fair value accounting, earnings management, and the case of bargain purchase gain

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between bargain purchase gains (BPGs) booked by the acquirer and smoothing of acquirers’ earning performance across time. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a sample of 122 bargain purchase acquisitions in non-financial industries from 2009 to 2012 and a pair-match control group of 122 goodwill acquisitions. Findings The authors find that BPGs, and in particular, the Level-3 fair value estimates of intangible assets acquired, have consistently been used to smooth earnings but that such smoothing activities are not associated with long-term market returns. Originality/value This study is the first one to investigate bargain purchase acquisitions in a broad range of non-financial industries and suggests that managers are using the valuation of intangibles to avoid unfavorable earnings even though these valuations are not credible to investors.

Earnings management in non-public companies: the case of for-profit hospice organizations

We examine earnings management in non-publicly listed companies, with a focus on for-profit (FP) hospice organizations, and extend the accounting earnings management literature to the hospice industry. FP hospice organizations file Medicare cost reports that include complete financial statements not otherwise publicly available. Managers of FP hospice organizations have incentives to manage earnings to increase performancebased bonuses, meet or beat bond covenant requirements, or avoid public scrutiny. We find total accruals are significantly positively associated with profitability, debt, and size factors. However, discretionary accruals are significantly negatively associated with debt and size, but not profitability. Thus, monitoring and political cost factors appear to effectively mitigate earnings management in this industry sector.

The links between implementing ISA 540 and mitigating the practice of smoothing reported net earnings using write-offs of accounts receivable and inventory by reporting entities in Poland

The paper addresses the question of the links between implementing ISA 540 and mitigating the practice of smoothing reported net earnings using write-offs of accounts receivable and inventory by reporting en-tities in Poland. The research question stems from the previous analysis carried out by the author in which evidence was provided that reporting entities in Poland in the period 2000–2010 effectively used write-offs of accounts receivable and inventory in order to mitigate fluctuations of reported net earnings. This paper provides evidence that before implementing ISA 540 reporting entities used write-offs of receivables and inventory for income smoothing in effective manner, however in the period after implementing the standard (2009–2014) no link was observed between the write-offs and reduced fluctuations of reported net earnings. The research has been carried out using Wilcoxon signed-rank test used to check equality of medians of mean deviations of net earnings before write-offs of receivables and inventory and mean deviations of net earnings after write-offs. For the period before implementing ISA 540 there are grounds to reject the hy-pothesis of equality of medians of mean deviations of net earnings, however in the post-adoption period there is no justification to reject the hypothesis of equality of medians. The research provides evidence of positive impact of ISA 540 mitigating the processes of accounting earnings management. The indicated regularity does not apply to banks, because within this group of companies we have not observed the use of write-offs of loan receivables in order to reduce the variability of net earnings before implementing ISA 540 and in the period following the implementation of the standard.

PENGARUH KEPEMILIKAN MANAJERIAL, PROPORSI KOMISARIS INDEPENDEN TERHADAP KUALITAS LABA

Pedi Riswandi; Ownership structure is very important because it is closely related to the operational control of the company . From the point of view of the theory of accounting , earnings management is determined by the motivation of the company manager . Different motivations will result in a different amount of earnings management , such as the manager who also shareholders of the company with a manager who is not a shareholder and board composition also plays an important role in control of what is done by the executive This study aimed to determine the effect of managerial ownership on earnings quality and the proportion of independent directors on the quality of earnings. The research sample using companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2009-2011. "The technique of purposive sampling method. " These results indicate that managerial ownership has a negative effect on the quality of earnings , proportion of independent directors has a positive effect on the quality of earnings. Key words:Managerial ownership, Proportion Independent Commissioner , Earnings Quality