Internal Control, Life Cycle and Earnings Quality —An Empirical Analysis from Chinese Market

Abstract

Whether internal controls can effectively constrain earnings management, which is a hot topic in recent years. I investigate the impact of internal control on earnings quality based on a life cycle perspective using data of listed companies of China’s market from 2010-2013. The empirical findings indicate that high quality internal control can suppress accrual earnings management and real earnings management (except for discretionary expenses manipulating earnings management) effectively, whilst in different life cycle stages (LCSs), the relation between internal control quality and accounting earnings quality (accrual quality and real earnings quality) is different. For the accrual quality aspect, in mature LCS, internal control quality and accrual quality is positively correlated. In growth or decline LCS, the relation between internal quality and accrual quality is not significant. For the real earnings quality aspect, in decline LCS, high quality internal control can improve real earnings quality; in growth LCS or mature LCS, the relation is just the opposite.