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Measuring the relationship between audit committee characteristics and earnings management: evidence from New Zealand listed companies

Toh, Moau Yong
Date
2013-11-01
Type
Dissertation
Fields of Research
ANZSRC::1501 Accounting, Auditing and Accountability , ANZSRC::150303 Corporate Governance and Stakeholder Engagement
Abstract
The recent corporate accounting scandals, such as the Enron scandal in 2001 and the WorldCom scandal in 2002, have increasingly drawn the attention of regulators around the globe to the monitoring role of audit committees in the financial reporting process. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the NZX’s recommendations on audit committee characteristics and earnings management in NZX listed companies. In particular, this study examines the relationships between earnings management and audit committee size, independence, financial expertise and diligence, as per the NZX’s recommendations. This study finds that the NZX’s recommendations that audit committees should comprise a majority of independent directors and at least one financial expert are associated with lower earnings management. Besides, companies whose audit committees meet at least quarterly report lower earnings management. Since the NZX does not recommend best practice for audit committee meetings, this finding has implications for New Zealand regulators and practitioners that meeting at least quarterly is a key criterion of audit committee effectiveness, hence, a change to corporate governance rules and principles may be necessary. However, this study finds that audit committee size is not related to lower earnings management, suggesting that detection and control of earnings management relies more on the independence, financial expertise and diligence of audit committees to generate quality discussions and monitoring duties. Except for the U.S.A., the results of this study do not differ materially from other major countries, such as Australia. This study contributes to the existing literature by providing evidence about the relationship between audit committee characteristics, as per the NZX’s recommendations, and earnings management in countries with similar institutional and legal environment to New Zealand.
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Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
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