Earnings Management During Financial Crises

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School of Business | Bachelor's thesis

Date

2023

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Laskentatoimi

Language

en

Pages

20+8

Series

Abstract

In order to make informed decisions, stakeholders must rely on financial statement figures. However, under certain circumstances, managers have strong incentives to use accounting judgment in favor of their own interests, potentially at the expense of other stakeholders. This literature review examines how financial crises affect managers' incentives to engage in earnings management and whether those actions are more prevalent during crises or not. The results indicate that as the business environment changes, some factors incentivize management to report higher-than-actual results, while other factors encourage reporting lower-than-actual results. Simultaneously, several factors encourage leaders to be more transparent than usual. Although the prevalence of earnings management during financial crises has been addressed in numerous studies across the globe, research findings have been highly diverse. Factors like the degree of investor protection, the quality of audit, different crisis stages, and specific firm-related elements such as leverage levels could explain these varying results.

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Thesis advisor

Pham, Ly

Keywords

earnings management, financial crises, earnings management incentives, earnings behaviour

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