Earnings management and the contest to the control: an international analysis of family-owned firms

IF 0.9 4区管理学 Q3 BUSINESS, FINANCE

Spanish Journal of Finance and Accounting-Revista Espanola De Financiacion Y Contabilidad Pub Date : 2014-07-17 DOI:10.2139/ssrn.1162122

Mauricio Jara Bertín, Felix J. López Iturriaga

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引用次数: 23

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on the conflict of interests among shareholders as a possible determinant of earnings management. Using a sample of 3559 listed firms from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Italy between 2008 and 2013, we analyse how the distribution of power among shareholders affects earnings management in family-owned firms. We find that the contest to the dominant family shareholder is relevant: namely, the more challenge to the control of dominant shareholders, the less earnings management in family firms. This contest is more important in civil law countries in which the shareholders rights are less protected. We also find that the nature of the blockholders can be relevant: consistent with the view that non-family shareholders are under more public scrutiny and have more difficulty to agree with the largest family shareholder to extract private benefits, our results suggest that a second or third non-family shareholder can reduce or alleviate earnings management.

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盈余管理与控制权之争:家族企业的国际分析

在本文中，我们关注股东之间的利益冲突作为盈余管理的可能决定因素。本文以2008年至2013年间来自美国、加拿大、英国、法国、西班牙和意大利的3559家上市公司为样本，分析了股东之间的权力分配如何影响家族企业的盈余管理。研究发现，家族企业对家族控股股东的竞争是相关的，即对家族控股股东控制权的挑战越大，家族企业的盈余管理就越少。在大陆法系国家，股东权利受到的保护较少，这种竞争更为重要。我们还发现，大股东的性质可能是相关的:与非家族股东受到更多的公众监督、更难以同意最大家族股东提取私人利益的观点一致，我们的研究结果表明，第二或第三个非家族股东可以减少或缓解盈余管理。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Spanish Journal of Finance and Accounting-Revista Espanola De Financiacion Y Contabilidad BUSINESS, FINANCE-

CiteScore

2.10

自引率

10.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Spanish Journal of Finance and Accounting ( SJFA) is a quarterly academic journal founded in 1972. It aims to publish high quality research papers in accounting and finance. The scope of SJFA covers theoretical and empirical analysis relating to financial markets and institutions, corporate finance, market microstructure, corporate governance, internal and management accounting and a wide spectrum of financial performance and financial reporting, including auditing and public accounting. The Journal welcomes both theoretical and empirical contributions, and in particular, theoretical papers that yield novel testable implications and empirical papers that are theoretically well motivated. The journal is not a suitable outlet for highly abstract mathematical papers or empirical papers with inadequate theoretical motivation. All manuscripts that meet these editorial guidelines are blind reviewed by external reviewers. SJFA sponsors a periodic conference in which selected papers under review are presented and discussed by additional reviewers in order to increase the quality of the papers published in the journal. If accepted for publication, these selected articles are published in the Journal with a special distinction. The Journal welcomes replies and discussions to both published and forthcoming articles. These contributions, if accepted by the editors, may eventually be published jointly with a reply or comment by the authors of the original paper.