Manipulation of accounting information: a theoretical and empirical analysis on the operational models of earnings management detection / Manipulação das informações contábeis: uma análise teórica e empírica sobre os modelos operacionais de detecção de gerenciamento de resultados

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

This research aims to investigate the theoretical and empirical validity of operational models to measure discretionary accruals used in the detection of earnings management. Initially, accounting information and its importance in business valuation and in the establishment of contractual relations are presented and discussed, as well as the accounting measurement procedure and the institutional and organizational characteristics that affect accounting choices. The characteristics and consequences of accounting information quality and the discretionarity of managers with respect to the opportunistic and efficiency perspectives of accounting information are also addressed. Next, the development and validation process of theoretical and empirical models in analytical and empirical accounting research is examined. This is followed by a theoretical and critical analysis about the specification of the general model to detect earnings management by accounting choices and operational models in literature to estimate discretionary accruals, founded on underlying theoretical premises. Based on observations about the construction of analytical and empirical models and empirical evidence from previous studies, a new model is proposed to analyze accruals behavior and estimate discretionary accruals. Additionally, the study also exhibits a model for earnings management detection that considers the simultaneous incentives and costs associated with the opportunistic practice on accounting figures. This analytic and empirical study also uses bibliographic and descriptive research. The sample, in this study, is composed of public companies from Brazilian, North-American and other Latin-American capital markets, in the period from 1996 to 2005. The modelsspecification and predictive power is analyzed through different statistical procedures. All operational models for measuring the discretionary accruals employed in earnings management detection are estimated through the pooling of independent cross sections for all economic environments. The model with the best predictive power is selected by adjusted R2, Akaikes and Schwarzinformation criteria and the Voung test. The research results suggest that the operational estimation models of discretionary accruals present in current literature do not exhibit adequate theoretical foundations. Some of those models are poorly specified and have low predictive power, besides being significantly affected by the economic environment. Moreover, the results proved that the operational model proposed in this study to estimate discretionary accruals for the detection of earnings management has larger explicative power of accruals behavior in all analyzed economic environments.

ASSUNTO(S)

teoria da mensuração comunicação na contabilidade value (accounting) accounting communication in accounting measurement theory valor (contabilidade) contabilidade

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