• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.173-188
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• 2023

This paper analyzed the Earnings management of firms selected as preliminary Unicorn. If a manager is selected as a preliminary unicorn firm, he can receive financial support of up to 20 billion won, creating a factor in managing the manager's earnings. The motive for management's earnings management is related to the capital market. Accounting information is used by investors and financial analysts, and corporate profits affect corporate value. Therefore, if the accounting earning is adjusted upward, the corporate value will be raised and investment conditions will be favorable. In this paper, earnings quality was measured by the modified Jones model of Dechow et al.(1995) by the ROA control model of Kothari et al.(2005) among the discretionary accruals estimated using an alternative accrual prediction model. Competing similar companies in the same market as the selected companies were formed, and the discretionary accruals were mutually compared to verify the research hypotheses, and only the selected companies were analyzed for the audit year and after the audit year. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the companies selected as preliminary unicorns had higher earnings management compared to the corresponding companies in question, which had a negative impact on the quality of accounting profits. It was found that the companies selected as preliminary unicorns continued to receive incentives for management's earnings management even after being selected. These results indicate that the companies selected as prospective unicorns are recognized for their value in the market through external growth rather than internal growth, and thus, incentives for management's earnings management to attract investment from external investors under favorable conditions are continuing. In the future preliminary unicorn selection evaluation, it was possible to present what needs to be reviewed on the quality of accounting earning. The implication of this paper is that the factors of management's earnings management eventually hinder investors and creditors from judging the reliability of accounting information. It was suggested that a policy alternative for the K-Unicorn Project, which enhances reliability were presented by reflecting the evaluation of earnings quality through discretionary accruals.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.81-101
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• 2003

The financial statements purpose to provide useful information to decision-making process of business managers. The value-relevant information, however, embedded in the financial statement has been often overlooked in Korea. In fact, the financial statements in Korea have been utilized for nothing but account reports to Security Supervision Boards (SSB). The objective of this study is to develop earnings forecasting models through financial statement analysis using artificial intelligence (AI). AI methods are employed in forecasting earnings: artificial neural networks (ANN) for manufacturing industry and case~based reasoning (CBR) for banking industry. The experimental results using such AI methods are as follows. Using ANN for manufacturing industry records 63.2% of hit ratio for out-of-sample, which outperforms the logistic regression by around 4%. The experiment through CBR for banking industry shows 65.0% of hit ratio that beats the statistical method by 13.2% in holdout sample. Finally, the prediction results for manufacturing industry are validated through monitoring the shift in cumulative returns of portfolios based on the earning prediction. The portfolio with the firms whose earnings are predicted to increase is designated as best portfolio and the portfolio with the earnings-decreasing firms as worst portfolio. The difference between two portfolios is about 3% of cumulative abnormal return on average. Consequently, this result showed that the financial statements in Korea contain the value-relevant information that is not reflected in stock prices.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.115-129
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• 2021

Purpose - This study aimed to clarify the effects of tax investigation probability on accounting transparency in KOSDAQ firms by using financial statement. In particular, it was analyzed whether the characteristics of a firm's listed market have a discriminatory effect on the relationship between the tax investigation selection rate (or detection rate) and earnings management. Design/methodology/approach - This paper examines analyzed the effect of tax investigation of the National Tax Service on the earnings management. The sample includes 9,603 firms listed on KOSPI and KOSDAQ from 2011 to 2018, all of which are manufacturing firms. This study conducted correlation and multiple regression analyses to verify the relationship between tax investigation probability and earnings management. The possibility of a tax investigation is the selection rate and the detection rate, and the profit adjustment was estimated at discretionary amount. Findings - As a result of empirical analysis, both firms listed on KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets showed that the higher the tax investigation rates, the more significant the possibility of reducing the earnings management of discretionary accruals. Additionally it was found that in KOSDAQ markets firms, the tax investigation detection rates had a signigicant nagative effect on discretionary accruals. Research implications or Originality - It can be interpreted that firms with a high rates of receiving a tax investigation decrease earnings management consideration of expenses such as additional tax amount due to the tax audit or a decline in corporate image.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.365-371
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• 2021

In the wake of several high-profile corporate accounting scandals, there has been evidence that companies are more eager to hire Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) with an accounting background. This signals that CEOs with an accounting background are recognized and trusted by the corporate world to boost the quality of financial reporting of a company. If it is so, in the context of combating the earnings management, hiring CEOs with an accounting background (being a conservative accounting practitioner), could become one of the effective internal corporate governance mechanisms (CGM) to bring down the earnings management activities. This study attempts to provide insight into the level of conservatism of the CEO with an accounting background. Following Basu (1997) and Khan and Watt (2009), the firm-year measure of conservatism (C_Score) was obtained, which later was associated with the accounting education of the CEO to determine their relationship. As expected, CEOs with accounting background exhibit a higher level of moral reasoning than their non - accounting educated counterparts. The finding of this study is useful to persuade the policymaker to consider lifting the trend of hiring a CEO with an accounting background as one of the best practices that the companies can work out to lessen earnings management activities.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.125-140
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• 2015

KOSDAQ market reorganized their division system from two types to four types of division departments such as blue chip, venture, medium, and technology development departments in 2011. However, under the current new division system, financially unhealthy firms attempting to take advantage of the classifying opportunity of blue chip department are likely to engage in pernicious earnings management. The objective of this study is to investigate the earnings management behavior surrounding the time of KOSDAQ firms entering the blue chip department via new division system. More specifically, we test whether the firms classified blue chip department tend to engage in upward earnings management using accruals and real activities before and after they achieve blue chip status. In this study, we analyzed 111 firms classified blue chip department in 2011 according to new division system in KOSDAQ market. Major test results indicate that firms entering the blue chip department according to current KOSDAQ division system in general, tend to inflate reported earnings by means both of accruals and real activities right before the entering year. This result suggests that the firms classified blue chip department engage in opportunistic earnings management with a view to uplifting their market values. Our study is expected to provide clues useful for searching policy directions which intend to ameliorate adverse side effects of the current KOSDAQ division system. In sum, the regulatory authorities and enforcement bodies need to exercise caution in deliberating more stringent review procedures so that financially healthy and promising candidates are properly segregated from their poor and risky counterparts, thus enhancing the beneficial effects, while mitigating adverse side effects of the system.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.25-38
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• 2022

The purpose of this paper is to verify the cost behavior of non-listed companies in Mongolia from 2013 to 2018. And we investigate the relationship between cost behavior and earnings management. Earnings management was measured using the Big-Bath and avoiding loss incentives. Big-Bath suspected firms report a very large loss and avoiding loss suspected firms have a bite profit. The results of this study are as follows. First, non-listed firms in Mongolia, operating costs(oc) and selling, general and administrative(sga) costs show the cost stickiness. Second, cost stickiness was different depending on the earnings management. The suspected avoiding loss firms have upward earnings management incentives, operating costs and sga costs all present anti-cost stickiness. The suspected big bath firms strengthen the cost stickiness of operating costs and sga costs. This study is meaningful in that it first analyzed the relationship between earnings management and cost stickiness of non-listed firms in Mongolia using empirical data. It will be meaningful in that it provides relevant information to those interested in research and investment.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.12
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• pp.293-308
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• 2020

This study aims to investigate the direct relationship between ownership structure, earnings manipulation, and organizational performance, and then examine the mediating effect of earnings manipulation in the relationship between ownership structure and organizational performance. This study collected and analyzed secondary data published in financial reports related to all insurance organizations listed in the Jordanian market during the study period (from 2009 until 2018). A panel data analysis was conducted, giving a total of 200 observations. The findings of this study concluded that ownership concentration, foreign ownership, and organization size affect organizational performance proxied by ROA, ROE, and EPS, more specifically, ownership concentration and organization size have a positive effect, whereas foreign ownership has a negative effect. At the same time, board of director ownership, organizational ownership, and CEO compensation did not affect organizational performance. Next, the board of director ownership, ownership concentration, foreign ownership, and CEO compensation affect earnings manipulation separately. In addition, earnings manipulation positively affects organizational performance proxied by ROA, ROE and EPS. This means that the higher the earnings manipulation is, the higher the organizational performance is. Finally, earnings manipulation mediates the relationship between ownership concentration and foreign ownership of ownership structure, and organizational performance.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.391-397
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• 2021

This study examines the effect of independent commissioners and the Audit Committee on internal control disclosure and its implications for earnings management in the banking industry listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange for the period 2016-2018. In this study, a purposive sampling technique was used, combined with two multiple regression analysis models. The final sample for this study comprised 30 companies over the three years of observation, such that there were 90 observations in total. This study indicates that independent commissioners, as measured by their composition, do not affect the disclosure of internal control. However, as measured by the number of members, the Audit Committee had a positive effect on internal control disclosures. This study also indicates that the disclosure of internal control as measured by the Internal Control Disclosure index affects reducing the negative practice of earnings management. This study proves that the Audit Committee's role is very dominant in assisting the Board of Commissioners in supervising internal control. This has implications for reducing earnings management practices. However, the Independent Commissioner's role in the Indonesian banking industry has not been optimal in carrying out the supervisory function in this study.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.23-40
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• 2024

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine the relation between accruals quality and managers' choice on the type of voluntary disclosure. Design/methodology/approach - Samples of this study are 8,248 firm-year observations listed in Korea Stock Exchange. Poisson regression analysis was hired in order to analyze the association between disclosure frequency and accruals quality because the dependent variables are count data. Findings - First, this study finds that managers' use of non-earnings-related type of voluntary disclosure is negatively related to accruals quality while their use of earnings-related disclosure is positively related to accruals quality. Second, discretionary accruals quality as well as innate accruals quality is significantly associated with disclosure frequency. Research implications or Originality - This study extends the line of research by incorporating the content of voluntary disclosure, earnings- and non-earnings-related information. The results of this study suggest that accruals quality may play a role in the choice of disclosure manner when investigating managers' voluntary disclosure.

• Journal of East Asia Management
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.23-51
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• 2023

We investigate whether the association between management overconfident tone and the level of audit effort measured by audit fees and hours differs depending on the level of earnings management. Prior studies suggest that firms led by overconfident managers are likely to initiate risky investments, report low quality financial statements, and have material weaknesses in internal control system. These characteristics, combined together, result in higher audit risk. At the same time, auditors assess audit risk based on the quality of financial reporting, measured by level of earnings management. As a result, the assess audit risk is likely to reflect the combined effect of management overconfidence and the level of earnings management. In this paper, we investigate whether auditors differentiate the effects of real earnings management (REM) and accrual-based earnings management (AEM) when they assess the audit risk related management overconfident. Using the CEO's letter published in 2018, we measure the CEO's tone representing the degree of overconfidence (i.e., activity). Based on this measure, we find that the positive association between managerial overconfident tone and audit effort is more pronounced as the level of REM is higher. However, we find that the baseline association does not vary depending on the level of AEM. These results suggest that auditors consider the managerial overconfident severer when such characteristic accompany the higher level of REM, which can be outcome of aggressive business decisions possibly leading to the higher audit risks. We further find that these results are stronger for Big 4 auditors and continuing auditors. This paper contributes to the literature and practice as follows. First, we provide contextual evidence on how auditors reflect managerial characteristics in the audit process by documenting that auditors actively increase their audit efforts only when overconfident managerial characteristics are highly likely to lead to audit risk. This result suggests that auditors conduct external auditing considering both the efficiency and effectiveness of the audit process. Second, we suggest that auditors use information obtained from a wide range of sources to identify audit risks. Our results provide evidence of how the auditing standards, which do not provide detailed guidelines for audit risk assessment, are being applied in practice. Finally, our results also enhance the understanding of how audit fees are determined. Combined with the studies related to audit pricing, we provide the important reference for discussion between the auditor and the auditee about the audit fee that has created acute tension after the enforcement of the new External Audit Act.