Earnings management, directors’ discretions and information content affecting discretionary accruals of Malaysian publicly listed companies

Abstract

Managers have reporting discretion permitted by accounting standards over a combination of earnings management choices. The objective of this study is to identify the types of discretionary accounting choices that are indicative of earnings management. Based on a sample of 947 companies listed on the Malaysian stock exchange, the results indicate that a number of firm specific financial variables that proxy for agency cost, political costs and information asymmetry capture discretionary accruals behaviour. This study also seeks to examine the explanatory power of the earnings management in predicting future earnings and firm value. The results indicate that discretionary accruals can improve the informativeness of a firm’s current and past earnings when predicting future earnings and share price