Earnings management and corporate governance: an analysis based on the adoption of IFRS in Brazil

Purpose: This paper aims to analyze whether the adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) strengthened the negative relationship among earnings management and  corporate governance best practices, which are: B3’s differentiated levels of corporate governance, the pr...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Authors: Chacon Prata, Bruno, Flach, Leonardo
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2021
Country:Brasil
Institution:Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN)
Repository:Revista Ambiente Contábil
Language:Portuguese
OAI Identifier:oai:periodicos.ufrn.br:article/20193
Online Access:https://periodicos.ufrn.br/ambiente/article/view/20193
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Earnings Management; Corporate Governance; IFRS
Financial Accounting
Gestión de Ganancias; Gobierno Corporativo; IFRS
Contabilidad Financiera
Gerenciamento de Resultados; Governança Corporativa; IFRS
Contabilidade Financeira
Description
Summary:Purpose: This paper aims to analyze whether the adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) strengthened the negative relationship among earnings management and  corporate governance best practices, which are: B3’s differentiated levels of corporate governance, the presence of a board of independent directors and whether the company is audited by a Big Four or not. Methodology: We applied panel data regression with a sample of 92 companies listed in B3 during the period 2002-2007, for the period prior to IFRS and 2010-2015, for the period after IFRS. Data were collected from the explanatory notes, company reference form and in the Economática® database. In order to measure the dependent variable earnings management, we applied the model proposed by Dechow, Hutton, Kim and Sloan (2012). Results: Results show that when there is an independent administrative committee, the levels of earnings management are lower, and this relationship is driven by the IFRS adoption. We cannot affirm that companies at the highest levels of corporate governance and audited by a Big Four have a lower incidence of earnings management after the application of IFRS. Contributions of the Study: This paper contributes to a better understanding of how variables related to governance can influence the quality of accounting and financial information. It also contributes to the literature that investigates how IFRS can influence the quality of accounting information.