Ownership Concentration and Earnings Quality in the Listed Companies in Tehran's Stocks Exchange

In this study we review the relationship between ownership concentration (OC) and earnings quality (EQ) by testing the data collected from 148 listed companies in the Tehran’s Stocks Exchange during a 5 year period from 1381-85. Researchers have found mixed results about the relationship between these two subject matters. We argue that one of the main reasons of such countervailing evidences is that those authors have used inappropriate OC measures disregarding the mutual relationships among blockholders. In order to avoid the possibility of such happening, using an innovative measure of OC, we are convinced that the usage of group measures of OC is justifiable with respect to the review of outside blockholders’ impact on EQ in Tehran’s Stock Exchange. Considering the multidimensionality nature of EQ concept, we have applied in our models, a measure of EQ using the qualitative characteristics of financial information of the conceptual framework of Iran’s Accepted Accounting Standards (Relevancy & Reliability). The results indicate that outside blockholders significantly improve EQ, while we found no evidence of such impact by Insiders.