Athanasakou, Vasiliki E., Strong, Norman and Walker, Martin (2009) Earnings management or forecast guidance to meet analyst expectations? Accounting and Business Research, 39 (1). pp. 3-35. ISSN 0001-4788
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
We examine whether UK firms engage in earnings management or forecast guidance to ensure that their reported earnings meet analyst earnings expectations. We explore two earnings management mechanisms: (a) positive abnormal working capital accruals; and (b) classification shifting of core expenses to non-recurring items. We find no evidence of a positive association between income-increasing, abnormal working capital accruals and the probability of meeting analyst forecasts. Instead we find evidence consistent with a subset of larger firms shifting small core expenses to other non-recurring items to just hit analyst expectations with core earnings. We also find that the probability of meeting analyst expectations increases with downward-guided forecasts. Overall our results suggest that UK firms are more likely to engage in earnings forecast guidance or, for a subset of larger firms, in classification shifting rather than in accruals management to avoid negative earnings surprises.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/RABR |
| Additional Information: | © 2009 Taylor & Francis |
| Divisions: | Accounting |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > HF5601 Accounting H Social Sciences > HG Finance |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Jun 2011 10:07 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Oct 2024 19:33 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/36806 |
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