Corporate governance and fraudulent financial reporting

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vahab Rostami ◽  
Leyla Rezaei

Purpose This study aims to trace the impact of corporate governance and its mechanisms in preventing companies from turning to fraudulent financial reporting. Design/methodology/approach For this purpose, using the systematic elimination pattern, the information of 187 listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange over six years from 2013 to 2019 were collected, and the hypotheses were examined using a linear regression model. To measure fraudulent financial reporting, the adjusted model of Beneish (1999) was used to evaluate corporate governance. Its mechanisms based on nine corporate governance mechanisms, including board independence, board remuneration, CEO financial expertise, expertise in CEO industry, board financial expertise, board industry expertise, board effort, CEO duality and managerial ownership, have been examined. These mechanisms are calculated as a combined index of corporate governance. Findings The findings indicate that robust corporate governance significantly reduces companies’ intention toward fraudulent financial reporting. In the same way, a negative and significant relationship was observed between each of the nine corporate governance mechanisms, except for board compensation and fraudulent financial reporting. Originality/value This study’s findings provide valuable insight into the importance of strengthening companies to prevent companies’ managers from engaging in fraudulent financial reporting activities. Hence, it is suggested that professional references bodies more seriously follow the rules to dictate to companies for using and empowering their corporate governance.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bishnu Kumar Adhikary ◽  
Ranjan Kumar Mitra ◽  
Mohammad Rajon Meah

Purpose This study aims to investigate the earnings management practices of the listed manufacturing firms in Bangladesh and assess the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on such earnings management behavior. Design/methodology/approach The study applies the real earnings management (REM) model developed by Dechow et al. (1998) and implemented by Roychowdhury (2006) and modified Jones model (1991) for the proxy of accrual-based earnings management (AEM). It uses a pooled ordinary least square regression model corrected with robust standard errors for empirical analysis. Findings The study finds that firms with small positive earnings per share are engaged in AEM to avoid losses. Also, firm managers craft discretionary expenses to manage real earnings. For governance factors, the institutional shareholders tend to play a significant role in limiting both REM and AEM embedded in generally accepted accounting principles or International Financial Reporting Standards. Also, factors such as foreign ownership and board size significantly restrict REM, whereas director ownership encourages the same. The paper does not reveal any significant monitoring role for other governance factors in curbing either REM or AEM practices by Bangladeshi firms. Research limitations/implications The paper studies the monitoring role of governance mechanisms on listed manufacturing firms’ earnings management. A study of separating the listed firms into family and non-family ones could be interesting for future research. Practical implications The paper unveils earning management techniques used by firms in Bangladesh and provides critical policy implications to the corporate governance mechanisms that effectively limit earnings management practice. Social implications The social significance is to aware constituents of financial reporting about the earnings management behavior by firms in emerging economies. Originality/value The study adds to evidence that the manufacturing firms in Bangladesh adopt both REM and AEM techniques to avoid losses. Simultaneously, the paper highlights some critical governance factors that can restrict misleading earnings management behavior by firms in an emerging economy to assist in policymaking.


2021 ◽  
pp. 57-79
Author(s):  
Cheng-Wen Lee Lee ◽  
Yi Tang Hu

The present study examines the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on compliance with IFRS and financial reporting quality, especially focusing on non-audit service and accountant’s tenure. The adoption of IFRS is launched in Taiwan since 2012. The study aims to investigate this issue using a sample of 3997 data gathered from listed companies traded on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and OTC over the period from 2012 up to 2019. The results show the evidence to support that the collective effect of non-audit services/accountant’s tenure on audit quality has changed to be more influential. This research findings also open valuable insights to regulators, stock markets, practitioners, and academicians in this issue. JEL classification numbers: D22, G32, M41. Keywords: IFRS, Non-audit services, Accountant’s tenure.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 1065-1072
Author(s):  
Maylia Pramono Sari ◽  
Kiswanto ◽  
Lintang Vernanda Rahmadani ◽  
Hera Khairunnisa ◽  
Imang Dapit Pamungkas

Purpose of the study: This study aims to analyze the detection of the risk factors of fraudulent financial reporting and corporate governance mechanisms as moderating variables with fraud diamond theory of the property and construction sector in Indonesia. The risk factors of fraudulent financial reporting by financial targets, ineffective monitoring, auditor change, change of directors. Methodology: The sample selection using purposive method sampling. The number of population in this study was 219. The samples of this study were 114 property and construction sector companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange during 2016-2018. This study tests the hypothesis in multivariate analysis using logistic regression with IBM SPSS Statistics 25. Main Findings: The results of this study the board of commissioners, independent commissioners, institutional ownership are able to moderate the relationship between financial targets on fraudulent financial reporting. The companies are able to optimize corporate governance mechanisms, especially the roles of the board of commissioners, independent commissioners, institutional ownership. So, that fraudulent financial reporting in the companies can decrease. Implications of this study: The results of this study are expected to provide practical implications for companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange, namely the need to strengthen the board of commissioners, independent commissioners, and institutional ownership to detect and prevent fraudulent financial reporting. The higher effectiveness of monitoring will be able to minimize the occurrence of fraudulent financial reporting. Novelty/Originality of this study: This study uses fraud diamond theory to detect and tests the moderating variables of corporate governance mechanisms on the relationship between the determinant fraudulent financial reporting. The study uses a moderating variable that is corporate governance mechanisms which is proxy by the board of commissioners, independent commissioners, institutional ownership, and audit committee.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1578-1596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thi Xuan Trang Nguyen

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of internal corporate governance mechanisms, including interest alignment and control devices, on the unrelated diversification level in Vietnam. Additionally, the moderation of free cash flow (FCF) on these relationships is also tested. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on a balanced panel data set of 70 listed companies in both stock markets, Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange and Hanoi Stock Exchange, in Vietnam for the years 2007–2014, which gives 560 observations in total. Findings The results show that if executive ownership for CEOs is increased, then the extent of diversification is likely to be reduced. However, the link between unrelated diversification level and executive stock option, another interest alignment device, cannot be confirmed. Among three control devices (level of blockholder ownership, board composition and separation of CEO and chairman positions), the study finds a positive connection between diversification and blockholder ownership, and statistically insignificant relations between the conglomerate diversification level and board composition, or CEO duality. Additionally, this study discovers a negative link between diversification and state ownership, although there is no evidence to support the change to the effect of each internal corporate governance mechanism on the diversification level of a firm between high and low FCF. Practical implications The research can be a useful reference not only for investors and managers but also for policy makers in Vietnam. This study explores the relationship among corporate governance, diversification and firm value in Vietnam, where the topics related to effectiveness of corporate governance mechanisms to public companies has been increasingly attractive to researchers since the default of Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group (Vinashin) happened in 2010 and the Circular No. 121/2012/TT-BTC on 26 July 2012 of the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance was issued with regulations on corporate governance applicable to listed firms in this country. Originality/value This research, first, enriches current literature on the relationship between corporate governance and firm diversification. It can be considered as a contribution to the related topic with an example of Vietnam, a developing country in Asia. Second, the research continues to prove non-unification in results showing the relationship between corporate governance and conglomerate diversification among different nations. Third, it provides a potential input for future research works on the moderation of FCF to the effects of corporate governance on diversification.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Mejbel Al-Saidi

The study investigated the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on the corporate capital structure of the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE). Specifically, this study linked five corporate governance mechanisms—large shareholder ownership concentration, government ownership concentration, board size, board independence, and family directors—with capital structure for 81 non-financial listed firms between 2017 and 2018. The data indicated that only government ownership concentration and family directors affect capital structure.


2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (10) ◽  
pp. 2740-2757 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atreya Chakraborty ◽  
Lucia Gao ◽  
Shahbaz Sheikh

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate if there is a differential effect of corporate governance mechanisms on firm risk in Canadian companies cross-listed on US markets and Canadian companies not cross-listed (Canadian only companies). Design/methodology/approach Using a sample comprised of all Canadian companies included in the S&P/TSX Composite Index for the period 2009–2014, this study applies OLS and fixed effect regressions to investigate the effect of corporate governance mechanisms on firm risk. Interaction variables between governance mechanisms and the cross-listing status are used to examine if this effect is different for cross-listed firms. Findings Results indicate that the effect of board characteristics such as size, independence and proportion of female directors remains the same in both cross-listed and not cross-listed firms. CEO duality and insider equity ownership impact firm risk only in cross-listed companies, while institutional shareholdings, environmental, social and governance disclosure and family control affect firm risk in Canadian only firms. Overall, the empirical results indicate that some governance mechanisms impact firm risk only in firms that cross-list, while others are well-suited for Canadian only firms. Practical implications This study suggests that some of the differences between Canadian companies that cross-list and the Canadian companies that do not cross-list in US stock markets may change the impact of governance mechanisms on firm risk. Therefore, these findings have important implications for the design of governance mechanisms in Canadian firms. Since some of these differences are common to other economies, the conclusions can be extended to companies in other countries with similar governance structures. Originality/value Although previous studies have investigated the effect of governance mechanism on firm risk, this is the first paper that studies the differential effect for companies that cross-list in US markets. Specifically, differences in the ownership structure, firm control and in the regulatory and institutional environment, may explain this differential effect. Unlike most of the previous studies that focus on the effect of individual governance mechanisms, this study uses several mechanisms and their interactions at the same time.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 503-525
Author(s):  
Nischay Arora ◽  
Balwinder Singh

Purpose The purpose of the paper is to examine the impact of corporate governance mechanisms, i.e. board structure and ownership structure on the underpricing of small and medium enterprises (SME) IPOs in India. Design/methodology/approach Most of the extant empirical research studies have either pivoted on mainstream IPOs or SMEs IPOs in developed economies, but the present study examines 200 SME IPOs issued during Feb 2012 to April 2017. Multiple regressions have been used to examine the impact of the corporate governance mechanisms on raw return (RR). Furthermore, robustness of the results has been verified through the employment of market-adjusted excess return (MAER) as an additional proxy of underpricing. Findings The results highlight that board size, inverse of board committees, board independence, board age, board directorships positively, and top ten shareholding negatively influence RR. Further, direction of promoter ownership variable indicates curvilinear relationship with underpricing. Other explanatory variables used in model lack statistical validity. Similar results have been obtained when variables were regressed against MAER with related board members being additionally significant in model. Practical implications The findings suggest that Indian investors do take cues from board structure and ownership patterns for making investment decisions in small- and medium-sized firms. Further, the results are also helpful to top management in structuring their boards. Originality/value The present research enriches SME IPOs underpricing literature because the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on unadjusted returns is relatively under explored particularly within the context of small- and medium-sized firms.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Schäuble

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of external and internal corporate governance mechanisms on agency costs. Design/methodology/approach The author uses data from German firms that were listed in the regulated market of the Frankfurt Stock exchange during 2006-2011. Agency costs were measured using stochastic frontier analysis, a relatively new approach to estimate agency costs. The regression analysis is applied to test the model. Findings The results indicate that an industry specialized audit firm, the presence of a large audit firm, abnormal audit fees, management ownership and variable management compensation are significantly negatively associated with the level of a firms’ agency costs. In contrast, this seems not to be true for the existence of an audit committee for which the results of the paper document a non-significant association. Originality/value The paper contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First, the research design is to the best of the authors’ knowledge the first that investigates the influence of different corporate governance mechanisms on the level of agency costs. Second, previous studies are mainly focused on the US audit market. This focus on the US audit market leaves uncertainties regarding the direction and magnitude of the empirical relationship in the European and German environmental context. Finally, the paper provides initial empirical evidence for a sample of German IFRS listed companies (IFRS – International Financial Reporting Standards).


Author(s):  
Xu_Dong Ji ◽  
Kamran Ahmed ◽  
Wei Lu

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of corporate governance and ownership structures on earnings quality in China both prior and subsequent to two important corporate reforms: the code of corporate governance (CCG) in 2002 and the split share structure reform (SSR) in 2005. Design/methodology/approach – This study utilises informativeness of earnings (earnings response coefficient), conditional accounting conservatism and managerial discretionary accruals to assess earnings quality using 12,267 firm-year observations over 11 years from 2000 to 2010. Further, two dummy variables for measuring the changes of CCG and SSR are employed to estimate the effects of CCG and SSR reforms on earnings quality via OLS regression. Findings – This study finds that the promulgation of the CCG in 2002 has had a positive impact, but the SSR reform in 2005 has had little effect on listed firms’ earnings quality in China. These results hold good after controlling for a number of ownership, governance and other variables and estimating models with multiple measures of earnings’ quality. Research limitations/implications – Future research could focus on how western style corporate governance mechanisms have been constrained by the old management systems and governmental dominated ownership structures in Chinese listed firms. The conclusion is that simply coping Western corporate governance model is not suitable for every country. Practical implications – The results will assist Chinese regulators in improving reporting quality, ownership structure and governance mechanisms in China. The results will help international investors better understand quality of financial information in China. Originality/value – This is the first to our knowledge that addresses the effects of major governance and ownership reforms together on accounting earnings quality and, thus, makes a significant contribution on understanding the effect of regulatory reforms on improving earnings quality. In doing so, it also indirectly assesses the effectiveness of western-style corporate governance mechanisms introduced in China.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 318-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hounaida Mersni ◽  
Hakim Ben Othman

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine whether corporate governance mechanisms affect the reporting of loan loss provisions by managers in Islamic banks in the Middle East region. Design/methodology/approach This empirical study uses balanced panel data from 20 Islamic banks, from seven Middle East countries for the period 2007 to 2011. The regression model is estimated using random effects specifications. Findings The empirical results show that discretionary loan loss provisions (DLLP) are negatively related to board size and the existence of an audit committee. Results also report a positive relationship between sharia board size and DLLP. This indicates that small sharia supervisory boards are more effective than larger ones, which could be due to the higher costs and negative effects of large groups on decision-making. Results also highlight that the existence of scholars with accounting knowledge sitting on the sharia board reduces discretionary behavior. Additional results provide evidence that an external sharia audit committee is also found to reduce discretion in Islamic banks. The conclusions are found to be robust to endogeneity issues and potentially omitted variables. Practical implications The findings are potentially useful for regulators and shareholders. Regulators could use the findings to focus on corporate governance mechanisms that restrain earnings management practices in Islamic banks and implement regulations to strengthen them. Additionally, this study gives shareholders further insight which enables them to better monitor the actions of managers and thus increase their control over their investments. Originality/value This study provides two contributions to the literature on Islamic banking. First, to the authors’ knowledge, this study is only the second piece of research focused on the impact of corporate governance on earnings management in Islamic banks. Second, the authors have examined the effect of some new corporate governance mechanisms that have not been studied previously in the research literature.


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