Corporate governance quality, firm size and earnings management: empirical study in Indonesia Stock Exchange

This article presents a literature review of 49 empirical studies on key audit matter (KAM) disclosure in audit reports. The study involves a structured literature review on KAM disclosure based on the reactions of stakeholders. The limitations of former studies and useful recommendations for research are stressed. Five major streams of empirical research that analyze the impact of KAM disclosure on stakeholders’ reactions are focused: (1) shareholders (e.g. investors’ perceptions of auditors’ responsibility and litigation, value relevance and investors’ decisions); (2) debtholders (e.g. loan contracting terms); (3) external auditors (e.g. audit processes and audit fees); (4) boards of directors (e.g. earnings management); and (5) other stakeholders (e.g. informational value for suppliers and customers). The authors stress that most of the included studies use experimental or archival data and analyze the impact of KAM disclosure on investor reactions in a US-American setting. As the international standard setters assume a positive impact of KAM on stakeholder reactions, mixed empirical results are found. Although there are some indications of decreased earnings management behavior, most studies find no significant changes in auditor behavior. Furthermore, there are many insignificant results with regard to shareholders’ reaction in line with our stakeholder and behavioral agency framework. The literature review is especially useful for management decisions, because firm reputation may be positively or negatively influenced by KAM regulations.

This study examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and earnings management after controlling for endogeneity of CSR. Using a sample of non-financial firms listed on Korean Securities Market between 2002 and 2010, this study finds that ignoring endogeneity biases the estimated relation between CSR and earnings management. Specifically, the results show that the negative and significant relation between CSR commitment and discretionary accruals reported in the previous studies becomes insignificant. However, the negative and significant relation between CSR commitment and real activities manipulation remains significant even when the endogeneity of CSR commitment is taken into account. Therefore, this study provides evidence that proactive CSR engagement significantly affects firm’s practice of real activities manipulation, while it does not affect its practice of discretionary accruals. These results indicate that CSR commitment leads managers to be more responsible in management of operational activities than in accruals management.

Banks are expected to operate within acceptable standards of governance for consistent profitable operations. They run heavily on customer deposits, which is confidence-driven. Since the quality of governance is critical to winning and retaining customer confidence and patronage, the imperative for good governance practices in banks cannot be overemphasized. This research paper explores the nexus between governance practices and bank profitability in Nigeria. It adopts the size of bank board and directors’ stake as proxies for corporate governance, with return on assets and return on equity as representations for financial performance. The research incorporates firm size as a controlled variable. The estimation technique of the Generalized Method of Moments was employed. Evidence from the research reveals that board size, directors’ equity, and firm size substantially affect Nigerian banks’ financial performance. Besides, the study shows a robust effect of lagged return on equity on the current level of performance. Therefore, the study asserts that governance in business entities strongly affects their financial performance and recommends maintaining optimum board size to minimize boardroom conflicts. It further prescribes that the requirement for substantial equity stake by directors of banking institutions be sustained, as it secures commitment to governance practices that support profitability.

Acknowledgment
The authors acknowledge the support of Covenant University towards the publication of this paper.