Corporate governance and earnings quality: the Iranian evidence

Abstract

Purpose - The main question in this study is whether there is any relationship between corporate governance variables and earnings quality. The size of the board and audit committee, the number of stockholding managers and non-executive directors, and management quality are considered as independent corporate governance variables in the hypotheses. Research design, data, and methodology - Earnings quality is used as the dependent variable. Input from the abovementioned variables are drawn from 94 listed companies in the Tehran Stock Exchange for the period between 2006 and 2010. Results - This study examines corporate governance aspects such as the size of the board of directors, the number of shares held by the board, the board’s independence, and the percentage of nonexecutive directors. The results show that establishing an audit committee has a significant role in ensuring higher quality reported earnings. Conclusions - The regression statistics output reveals a meaningful relationship between earnings quality and the size of the board of directors, the number of non-executive directors, and the size of the audit committee. This result indicates that improving earnings quality requires that the size of the board of directors be taken into account.