This study examines the relation between corporate governance, as measured by blockholder ownership and large business groups, and earnings management. Despite of different incentives for a decision maker as ownership increase, many other studies foun...
This study examines the relation between corporate governance, as measured by blockholder ownership and large business groups, and earnings management. Despite of different incentives for a decision maker as ownership increase, many other studies found ordinary linear relation, using ownership structure as independent variable. Also, although there are quite obvious difference of characteristics between business group-affiliation and non-affiliation in Korean business environment, pooled analyses are used for many research designs. In these cases, results should be interpreted cautiously because of external validity problem.
Based on a sample of 9,323 firm-years over 1996 to 2015 from companies listed in Korea Securities Exchange, I find the U-shape relation between blockholder ownership and accruals management for non-affiliated firms, and positive linear relation between blockholder ownership and real activities management for group-affiliated firms.
The findings of this study suggest that, for generalization, non-linearity of incremental effects of ownership or substitutive relation between earnings management proxies should be considered in analyses of ownership structure or earnings management. Also, different results between group-affiliated and non-affiliated firms suggest that, because pooled analysis assumes same characteristics for firms in a country, it is important for external validity to divide sample by characteristics in cross-firm analysis.