Investigating Accrual-Based and Real Earnings Management in Pre- and Post-Securities Market Act Periods

Earnings management has negative impact on the transparency of financial information، and leads to decreasing the quality of financial reporting process. Earnings management can be limited by corporate governance. Legal supervision is one of the outside strategies for corporate governance and responsibility، which has an undeniable role in confronting such situations. Thus، the objective of this study is investigating the role of Security Market Act as supervisory process over capital market in Iran، in opposition to earnings management (accrual-based and real earnings management). To investigate this issue، discretionary accruals and a combination of abnormal cash flow (from operations، abnormal product expenses and abnormal discretionary expenses) have been considered as proxies for accrual-based earnings management and real earnings management، respectively. The collected data from a sample of 97 companies، listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange in the years 2001 to 2010، was analyzed by multiple regression analysis. The results indicated that there are a significant and negative relationship between accrual-based earnings management and Security Market Act، and a significant and positive relationship between real earning management and this Act.