The Impact of Gender Diversity and Culture on Earnings Management
Keywords
Loading...
Authors
Issue Date
2017-08-21
Language
en
Document type
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Title
ISSN
Volume
Issue
Startpage
Endpage
DOI
Abstract
The growing female participation on the board of directors is increasingly perceived to be valuable. Also, there is a growing interest in the influence of culture on business practices and accounting decisions. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of gender diversity and culture on earnings management, whereby a distinction is made between accrual based earnings management and real earnings management. The sample consists of 640 firm-year observations of listed firms from 8 European Union countries for the period 2012 – 2016. The results show that gender diversity has a negative impact on accrual based earnings management, but not on real earnings management. However, this study finds that it takes 30% or more women on the board of directors to have a significant impact, which is in line with the critical mass theory. This study also examines the possible interaction effect of culture in terms of masculinity/femininity. The results show no significant moderation effect, suggesting that culture has no significant influence on the relationship between gender diversity and earnings management. Other institutional and cultural factors could be used in future studies to explore potential effects.
Key words: Gender Diversity; Board Of Directors; Accrual Based Earnings Management; Real Earnings Management; Culture; Masculinity; Femininity
Description
Citation
Supervisor
Faculty
Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen