Information technology infrastructure and earnings management strategy: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment

ABSTRACT Taking the ‘Broadband China’ programme as a quasi-natural experiment, we intend to explore the effect of information technology infrastructure (Hereinafter, ITI) on earnings management strategy. Our results show that with the office location city selected as the pilot city, the firm will strategically reduce the accrual-based earnings management and increase real earnings management. In addition, we find that ITI can reduce audit delay, decrease financial restatement, increase analyst coverage, improve analyst forecast accuracy, promote the media to release original news, and increase investor postings, which is consistent with the view that ITI can improve stakeholders’ monitoring efficiency. Cross-sectional analyses show that the impact of ITI on earnings management strategy is more pronounced for firms with low corporate governance efficiency. This study is helpful to further understand the externalities of ITI to firms’ behaviour.