Real And Accruals Earnings Management And Value Relevance Of Accounting Information Among Indonesian Listed Companies
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Date
2012-02
Authors
Subekti, Imam
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Abstract
The outbreak of the 1997 East Asian financial crisis, weak corporate governance
practices in Indonesia and their impact on the relations between earnings
management and value relevance of accounting information have motivated the
present study to pursue the following objectives: (1) to examine the tactics employed
by Indonesian public listed companies to conduct earnings management in the
attempt to avoid reporting losses, (2) to investigate the relationship between
accounting information (earnings and book value of equity) and firm value, and (3)
to investigate the effect of earnings management practices on the value relevance of
accounting information. The sample of this study comprises 97 public companies
listed in the Indonesian Stock Exchange over the period of 1995 to 2006 with 1164
firm-years observations. Panel data regression was employed to test the hypotheses.
The results show that Indonesian public companies tend to perform real earnings
management rather than accruals earnings management to avoid reporting losses.
Real activities which are used as vehicle to perform earnings management are cash
flow from operation, production costs, and discretionary expenses. On the other
hand, accruals accounts are managed through the use long-term accruals. The results
also reveal that earnings and book value of equity are still relevant in measuring firm
value. Earnings management practices are negatively related to the value relevance of accounting information. The study also found that during the economic crisis,
management tends to reduce both cash and accrual expenses. On the contrary,
earnings management is performed through increasing of cash flow from operation
and production costs after the crisis. From the theoretical perspective, the study
supports the prediction of positive accounting theory regarding the motivation to
engage in earnings management among managers i.e. to communicate information to
investors. The sensitivity analysis on the application of the logarithm adjustment to
the earnings management model and the computation of the earnings per share
threshold using two different currencies contribute to the literature with respect to
research methodology. This study provided empirical evidence that companies listed
in Indonesian Stock Exchange engaged in earnings management through income
maximization in order to avoid negative earnings (losses). This suggests that
authoritative bodies may need to introduce additonal measures through ongoing
regulatory activities to more effectively restrict the oppportunistic behaviour of
management and to improve the integrity of the financial reporting process.
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Keywords
Accounting