[Purpose]The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the financial ratio on the earnings management of the Evaluation System for Construction Capacity(hereafter, ESCS) such as current ratio(hereafter, CR), borrowing dependency ratio(hereafte...
[Purpose]The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the financial ratio on the earnings management of the Evaluation System for Construction Capacity(hereafter, ESCS) such as current ratio(hereafter, CR), borrowing dependency ratio(hereafter, BR), and interest coverage ratio (hereafter, ICR) before and after 2015 when the ESCS were changed.
[Methodology]The sample of this study was limited to the construction companies listed continuously from 2011 to 2019. The full 200 sample companies were selected and verified by dividing them into 2011 to 2014 ‘BEFORE’ the ESCS was changed and 2016 to 2019 ‘AFTER’ the ESCS. As a proxy variable for earnings management, discretionary accruals(hereafter, DA) estimated by the modified Jones model (Dechow et al., 1995) was used.
[Findings]First, before 2014, when the CR was reflected in the ESCS, the CR showed a significant positive (+) explanatory relationship with DA, but no significant explanatory relationship was observed after 2016 when the CR was excluded from the ESCS. Second, it was confirmed that BR did not have a significant effect on DA until 2014, but it had a significant negative effect after 2016 when BR was reflected in the ESCS. Third, the ICR showed a significant positive (+) explanatory power on DA in general, but the explanatory power on DA was stronger after 2016 when the ESCS was changed.
[Implications]This study is meaningful as an initial study that earnings management can appear differently in order to meet the requirements according to the time when the financial ratio of the ESCS is changed.