Business elites and earnings management in Malaysian public listed companies

• Published in: AIP Conference Proceedings
• Main Author: Sriram R.A.P.; Yusoff W.S.; Salleh M.F.M.; Ibrahim S.; Rashid I.M.A.; Azmin A.A.
• Format: Conference paper
• Language: English
• Published: American Institute of Physics Inc. 2021
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85111399301&doi=10.1063%2f5.0051947&partnerID=40&md5=c035da1c4c25b88845599520c6408dbf

This paper aims to focus on earnings management and the influence of business elites towards this practice. This research was made on a total of one hundred seventy-four (174) firm-year observations, in which these comprises of Malaysian public listed companies with at least one (1) business tycoon present in the Board of Directors, over three (3) years. The empirical results of this study show that the presence of business elites in public listed companies in Malaysia has a significant impact to the level of earnings management practised by these firms, and business elites can control earnings management. In other words, if a company has more business elites sitting in its board of directors, there will be a lesser occurrence of managers manipulating their earnings and financial reports. This outcome is a new contribution to the earnings management field of study. © 2021 Author(s).