Using a sample of 104 companies that conducted initial public offering (IPO) on the Warsaw Stock Exchange between 2006 and 2016, we investigated the relationship between the accuracy and bias of the earnings forecast disclosed in the IPO prospectus and the firm corporate governance attributes. Applying multiple Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions models, we focused on the role of the board size, the percentage of women on the board, the board age diversity measure, and the proportion of shares owned by the members of the board. Generally, our findings show that some characteristics of management and supervisory board improve the usefulness of earnings forecasts’ credibility. Especially, a more diversified board in terms of age and higher management ownership results in more accurate forecasts. This is the first study giving an insight into the role of supervisory and management board characteristics on precision of earnings forecasts revealed in the prospectus by Polish IPO companies.

Motivation: Although the issue of accuracy and bias of earnings forecasts revealed in the IPO prospectuses has attracted attention of many researchers, the literature on the relationship between board characteristics and the quality of such financial projections is still very limited, especially for a two-tier board structure consisting of the management and the supervisory board. The policy of diversity on the boardroom is promoted in many countries and composition of the management and supervisory boards is expected to be comprehensive and diverse, among others, in terms of gender, education, age and professional experience of the members. Aim: The main objective of this study is to analyse the relationship between the accuracy of the earnings forecast disclosed in the IPO prospectus and the diversity of company's corporate governance institutions. More specifically, we ask a question whether the extent ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Research background: Diversity management is one of the hot topic issues present in current public discussions. Board diversity requirements are quite new for Polish public companies. The companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange have to publish a statement on the company's compliance with the corporate governance recommendations and principles included in ?Best Practice for GPW Listed Companies 2016?. This regulation is based on the 'comply or explain? principle, thus the company may decide whether to comply with every rule included in the code, but decision on not implementing one or more rules should be explained by the company. Some of the recommended rules regard the board (supervisory and management) diversity policy implementation, where diversity refers to such dimensions as gender, education, age and professional experience. Purpose of the article: This study aims to investigate determinants of board diversity policy implementation by domestic companies listed on the WSE. It also documents explanations provided by companies that do not apply board diversity policy. Methods: The research sample covers 268 non-financial domestic companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange between 2016 and 30 November 2018. The companies? current reports on company compliance with the corporate governance codes and information issued on companies? websites were analyzed in order to identify those that announced implementation of board diversity policy. This study uses logistic regression analysis to identify the firm-level characteristics that may influence the implementation of board diversity policy. Findings & value added: This is the first study analyzing the drivers of board diversity policy implementation by Polish companies listed on the WSE. It shows that large companies, companies with larger management boards and companies with women acting as presidents of the supervisory boards are more likely to take actions seeking to achieve management and supervisory board diversity.

Research background: Several studies investigated the issue of accuracy of earnings fore-casts disclosed in IPO prospectus because of its importance in the investor’s decisions. Disclosing earnings forecasts can reduce information asymmetry and encourage potential investors to buy offered shares. The accuracy of earnings forecasts, and especially its deter-minants, was explored by some researchers, but for Polish companies such studies have not been conducted.Purpose of the article: The first objective of this study is to examine the bias and accuracy of earnings forecasts disclosed in IPO prospectuses by Polish companies attempting to be listed on the main market of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The second aim of this paper is to identify the relationship between the absolute fore-cast error employed as a measure of earnings accuracy and a number of company specific characteristics such as company’s size, leverage, forecast horizon, managerial ownership, number of shares offered to investors (in relation to total shares before IPO).Methods: The empirical analysis were conducted on a sample of 102 domestic companies that performed IPOs on the main market of the Warsaw Stock Exchange during 2006-2015 and disclosed earnings forecasts in IPO prospectus. The forecast error (FER) and absolute forecast error (AFER) were adopted as a measure of accuracy of earnings forecasts. The non-parametric test was employed to achieve the adopted aims.Findings & Value added: The results show that, on average, the forecasted earnings exceed the actual earnings (i.e. the earnings forecasts are optimistic) and fore-casts are inaccurate. Moreover, the optimistic forecasts are more inaccurate than pessimistic ones. The findings of multiple regression model show that three independent variables may affect the level of absolute forecast error: the company’s size, managerial ownership and forecast horizon.

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