Impact of Audit Quality on Earnings Management: An Empirical Analysis in the Indian Context

Anchoring upon the agency theory of corporate governance, auditing function as a monitoring mechanism is supposed to alleviate information asymmetry between the managers and the shareholders of a company by controlling distortion of reported earnings by the former. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of audit quality on earnings management and substitutability of earnings management strategies using a sample of all Bombay Stock Exchange-listed companies for 10 financial years, that is, from 31 March 2010 to 31 March 2019. The previous studies addressing the issue have mostly captured companies in the developed countries or have dealt with only one strategy at a time. This study adds to the literature by undertaking a comprehensive approach to the analysis by studying both accrual earnings management as well as real earnings management in the Indian context, which are estimated through various models. The findings suggest significance of Big 4 auditors in constraining all forms of earnings management. For firms within the sample that have the incentives to distort earnings, long auditor tenure is found to be aiding earnings management through accruals, thus impairing audit quality.