The moderating effect of the sticky cost on the relationship between the earning quality and its determinants

This research studies the moderation effect of the sticky cost on the relationship between the earning quality and its determinants of the listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange during the period of 2008 to 2012.Many variables have been considered as determinants of the earning quality in the previous studies, however in this research four variables including persistence, predictability, honesty, and timeliness have been selected as important determinants of the earning quality.
We have randomly selected 84 companies among all companies in Tehran Stock Exchange and used moderated multiple regression models for analyzing the data and testing the hypotheses. The results show a significant negative relationship between the sticky cost and the earning quality (as a new determinant of earning quality) and significant inverse effect on the relationship between the earning quality and persistence, predictability and honesty. Nevertheless, no significant effect of the sticky cost on the relationship between the earning quality and timeliness could be found. As the main contribution of this study, it should be mentioned that no research as studied so far the moderating effect of the sticky cost on the relationship between the earning quality and its determinants not only in the Iran’s capital market, but in the world, as far as we searched.