Fraud Risk and Earnings Management

Advances in Accounting, 2011

a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Fraud Earnings management Analyst forecasts Unexpected Revenue per Employee

Research in World Economy

The purpose of this paper is to explain the transformation of earnings management into financial statement fraud. Related papers on earnings management and financial statement fraud were intensively reviewed. Although there are some overlaps in both concepts, application of earnings management is not always related to financial statement fraud. Earnings management can occur for a number of reasons, including unintentional errors and legitimate disagreement over GAAP. Results of this study indicate that accounting records are allowed to be managed up to certain hedge. Crossing the hedge would lead the organization to be convicted in illegal financial reporting.

This study aims to explore the role of corporate governance as a moderating variable on the effects of earning management on financial statement fraud. The purposive sampling method was used to obtain 37 manufacturing multinational companies from Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) for the years 2018-2020. Moderated Regression Analysis (MRA) technique was used to test the Beneish M-score model. Earning management is proxied by discretionary accrual, and corporate governance is proxied by independent commissioners, managerial ownership, institutional ownership, and audit committee financial expertise. Earning management has a positive significant effect on financial statement fraud and audit committee financial expertise strengthens the effect of earning management on financial statement fraud. Meanwhile, independent commissioner, managerial ownership, and institutional ownership could not moderate earning management to financial statement fraud. The audit committee variable strengthened the relationship between earnings management and financial statement fraud, therefore, for further research employ the ethics of the audit committee as an additional variable.

Objective-The objective of this research is to obtain empirical evidence about the effect of real earnings management that is proxied by abnormal Cash Flow from operating and discretionary expenses towards fraudulent financial reporting. Methodology/Technique-The objects in this research are companies listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange (idx) between 2011 and 2015 comprised of companies that have engaged in fraudulent activities as well as those that have not, to enable a comparison to be made. The companies that have engaged in fraudulent financial reporting were obtained from a list issued by the Financial Services Authority (OJK), being the agency that oversees the capital market in Indonesia. The sampling is conducted using purposive sampling. Secondary data is used, and the hypotheses are testing using logistic regression analysis. Findings-The results of this research show that: (1) Real Earning Management proxied by Abnormal Cash Flow from operating activities (CFO) have a significant effect towards Fraudulent Financial Reporting (FFR), (2) Real Earning Management proxied by Abnormal Discretionary Expenses does not have an effect on Fraudulent Financial Reporting (FFR) and (3) Real Earning Management that is proxied by Abnormal Cash Flow from operating (CFO) and Abnormal Discretionary Expenses have a simultaneous and significant effect on Fraudulent Financial Reporting (FFR). Novelty-Based on these findings, this research provides insight to companies to enable them to give greater attention to abnormal cash flow from operating activities due to the effect this has on companies that are suspected of committing irregularities in its operational activities. This is important because fraudulent reporting can erode investor's confidence and thereby reduce investment in the company. Type of Paper: Empirical.

Journal of Governance and Regulation

This study aims to examine the relationship between factors of pressure, opportunity, and rationalization, and the occurrence of real earnings management among Malaysian public listed companies. The study used a sample of 557 Malaysian public listed companies between 2017 and 2019, comprising a total of 1,671 firm-year observations. Replicating a study by Khanh and Nguyen (2018), but not limited to external governance of audit quality, the study added to the knowledge of real earnings management by taking into account the effect of internal governance such as board independence and multiple directorships. And, following Roychowdhury (2006), real earnings management is measured by abnormal cash flow from operations, abnormal production costs, and abnormal discretionary expenditure. The results from regression analysis show that there is a negative and significant association between financial performance, measured by return on assets, and real earnings management. In addition, the re...

Journal of Modern Accounting and Auditing, 2016

Earnings management research has a long and rich history. The agency conflict, incentives, rationalization, opportunity plus having the capability among the managers to manipulate the financial statements lead them to commit fraud. The loopholes in the standards or the deviation from real operational activities promote this situation to prolong. In relation to this issue, this study examines the earnings management behavior among fraud firms in Malaysia. Further, this study examines the relationship between accruals earnings management as a proxy variable for discretionary accruals and real earnings management as the proxy variable for discretionary cash flow. Sample of 57 alleged fraud firms was selected based on the fraudulent financial reporting offences announced in Bursa Malaysia website. The sample data are collected from public firms which committed fraud from 2001 to 2013. This study found a significant negative relationship between accruals earnings management and real earnings management among the fraud firms in Malaysia suggesting that these firms aggressively manage earnings downwards or upwards essentially to avoid regulators scrutiny apart from aiming to achieve personal incentives. The study significantly finds evidence that fraud firms manage earnings on a sequential basis between accruals earnings management and real earnings management prior to fraud year. The findings indicate that firms opt for real earnings management and make full use of its distinguished features of not easily traceable to continue managing earnings immediately subsequent to fraud year. This study may assist regulators, auditors, and policymakers to curb earnings management patterns that have high likelihood of becoming part of fraud antecedent.

Heliyon

This study combines the concept of a fraud triangle and a modified Beneish M-score to detect factors that trigger earnings management. The modified M-score formula used in this study contains five original and four additional ratios. A sample of 284 manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in the period 2017-2019 is used. Based on the logistic regression test and t-test, the results show that asset growth, changes in receivables to sales, and auditor changes have a negative relationship and debt ratio has a positive relationship with earnings management. In addition, return on assets has no relationship with earnings management. In other words, manipulator firms are subject to greater pressure on leverage and have fewer independent commissioners. This study is the first to utilise the modified Beneish M-score model to detect earnings management in manufacturing companies in Indonesia. The effectiveness of this model makes it a valuable tool in detecting fraud and is expected to be useful for future research.

The International Journal of Management, 2018

Earnings management (EM) is the choice of accounting policy by a manager to achieve multiple goals. EM activity can be divided into two types: accrual manipulation activity and real manipulation activity. However, both of these have a major difference: the accrual manipulation does not affect cash flow, whereas real manipulation affects cash flow. Whether misleading or not to the users of financial statements, good or bad for the practice, controversy arises when earnings management is associated with morals / ethics. EM practices are suspected to arise due to agency problems arising from a conflict of interest between the principal and the agent. In accordance with agency theory, the function of the independent auditor can reduce agency problems. A qualified auditor, trusted to provide trust to stakeholders about the performance of management. High-quality auditors are more likely to detect dubious accounting practices. Thus, in the context of research, audit quality is often regarded as an antecedent variable and a variable that can reduce the occurrence of EM practice. Furthermore, the practice of Accrual Earnings Management (AEM) and Real Earnings Management (REM) in some empirical results turns out to be a substitution.

2017

This study analyzes the influence of financial stability, financial targets and the role of the quality of auditors against fraud measures financial statements. This study using purposive sampling and use of the 21 companies that commit fraud recorded in the financial statements of the Financial Services Authority and 21 companies did not commit fraud which includes compass 100 in the Indonesia Stock Exchange using logistic regression analysis. The study found a positive effect of variable quality auditor against fraudulent financial reports, found a negative influence financial stability and financial variables against the target of fraudulent financial statements. Limitation of this study are limited variables and proxy variables used to measure financial targets, further research is recommended to add the variables that affect the occurrence of acts of fraud financial statements, and look for a proxy for a target financial variables.

This study aims to determine whether Financial Stability, Auditor Quality, and External Pressure affect Fraud Financial Statements with Good Corporate Governance as a moderating variable. A total of 34 banking companies are listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange for the 2019-2021 period. This study used purposive sampling as a sampling technique and documentation as a data collection technique. The data that has been collected is then analyzed by logistic regression analysis. The results of hypothesis testing show that (1) financial stability, auditor quality, and external pressure have no effect on financial statement fraud, (2) good corporate governance is not able to moderate the influence between financial stability and auditor quality on financial statement fraud, but can moderate the effect between external pressure on financial statement fraud.