{"title":"Military-experienced senior executives, corporate earnings quality and firm value","authors":"Zhe Li, Xinrui Liu, Bo Wang","doi":"10.1108/jal-08-2022-0089","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"PurposeAccounting scandals and earnings management problems at large firms such as Global Crossing and Enron have resulted in lots of wealth loss not only to corporate investors but also led tremendous damage to societies. Hence, policymakers and academic researchers have started to explore mechanisms to prevent improprieties in financial reporting and further enhance firm value. Using data from United States (US)-listed companies between 2000 and 2018, this article explores the effect of ex-military executives on earnings quality, the role of financial analysts in their interplay and the firm value implication of earnings quality driven by ex-military executives.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs a firm fixed-effects model to validate the main conjecture and adopts the weighted least squares, Granger causality analysis, instrumental variable approach, propensity score matching, entropy balancing approach and dynamic system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator to address robustness and endogeneity issues.FindingsAuthors reveal that companies run by ex-military senior executives exhibit lower levels of accruals-based and real earnings management than those without. The effect of management military leadership on constraining earnings management is more prominent for companies with low analyst coverage, suggesting that the military experience of executives could be a substitute for external monitoring. Authors also find that these ethical managers alleviate the negative impact of earnings management on firm value and that companies managed by these managers exhibit higher firm performance.Practical implicationsThis study highlights the importance of the intrinsic motivation behind the effect of military experience on senior managers' personalities and offers essential stakeholder-related implications regarding the effect of military experience. The military experience of senior managers helps facilitate the attainment of broader corporate governance and economic objectives.Originality/valueThis article adds new insights to the literature on the role of managerial military experience in decision-making processes, financial reporting outcomes and firm performance by employing the upper echelons and imprinting theoretical perspectives.","PeriodicalId":45666,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Accounting Literature","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Accounting Literature","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1108/jal-08-2022-0089","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
PurposeAccounting scandals and earnings management problems at large firms such as Global Crossing and Enron have resulted in lots of wealth loss not only to corporate investors but also led tremendous damage to societies. Hence, policymakers and academic researchers have started to explore mechanisms to prevent improprieties in financial reporting and further enhance firm value. Using data from United States (US)-listed companies between 2000 and 2018, this article explores the effect of ex-military executives on earnings quality, the role of financial analysts in their interplay and the firm value implication of earnings quality driven by ex-military executives.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs a firm fixed-effects model to validate the main conjecture and adopts the weighted least squares, Granger causality analysis, instrumental variable approach, propensity score matching, entropy balancing approach and dynamic system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator to address robustness and endogeneity issues.FindingsAuthors reveal that companies run by ex-military senior executives exhibit lower levels of accruals-based and real earnings management than those without. The effect of management military leadership on constraining earnings management is more prominent for companies with low analyst coverage, suggesting that the military experience of executives could be a substitute for external monitoring. Authors also find that these ethical managers alleviate the negative impact of earnings management on firm value and that companies managed by these managers exhibit higher firm performance.Practical implicationsThis study highlights the importance of the intrinsic motivation behind the effect of military experience on senior managers' personalities and offers essential stakeholder-related implications regarding the effect of military experience. The military experience of senior managers helps facilitate the attainment of broader corporate governance and economic objectives.Originality/valueThis article adds new insights to the literature on the role of managerial military experience in decision-making processes, financial reporting outcomes and firm performance by employing the upper echelons and imprinting theoretical perspectives.
期刊介绍:
The objective of the Journal is to publish papers that make a fundamental and substantial contribution to the understanding of accounting phenomena. To this end, the Journal intends to publish papers that (1) synthesize an area of research in a concise and rigorous manner to assist academics and others to gain knowledge and appreciation of diverse research areas or (2) present high quality, multi-method, original research on a broad range of topics relevant to accounting, auditing and taxation. Topical coverage is broad and inclusive covering virtually all aspects of accounting. Consistent with the historical mission of the Journal, it is expected that the lead article of each issue will be a synthesis article on an important research topic. Other manuscripts to be included in a given issue will be a mix of synthesis and original research papers. In addition to traditional research topics and methods, we actively solicit manuscripts of the including, but not limited to, the following: • meta-analyses • field studies • critiques of papers published in other journals • emerging developments in accounting theory • commentaries on current issues • innovative experimental research with strong grounding in cognitive, social or anthropological sciences • creative archival analyses using non-standard methodologies or data sources with strong grounding in various social sciences • book reviews • "idea" papers that don''t fit into other established categories.