Earnings management, Capital management, Loan loss provisions, IFRS, European Union, C23, G14, M41,

We investigate the impact of organizational religiosity on the earnings quality of listed banks in the Middle East and North Africa region. We analyze Islamic banking institutions, which operate within strict religious norms and extended accountability constraints, and compare them with their conventional counterparts during 2008-2013.We find that Islamic banks are less likely to manage earnings and that they adopt more conservative accounting policies. Based on these findings, we argue that religious norms and moral accountability constraints in these organizations have a significant impact on financial reporting quality and agency costs, which has implications for both regulators and market participants.

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Manuscript Type Empirical Research Question/Issue In this paper, we empirically investigate whether US listed commercial banks with effective corporate governance structures engage in higher levels of conservative financial accounting and reporting. Research Findings/Insights Using both market‐ and accrual‐based measures of conservatism and both composite and disaggregated governance indices, we document convincing evidence that well‐governed banks engage in significantly higher levels of conditional conservatism in their financial reporting practices. For example, we find that banks with effective governance structures, particularly those with effective board and audit governance structures, recognize loan loss provisions that are larger relative to changes in nonperforming loans compared to their counterparts with ineffective governance structures. Theoretical/Academic Implications We contribute to the extant literature on the relationship between corporate governance and quality of accounting information by providing evidence that banks with effective governance structures practice higher levels of accounting conservatism. Practitioner/Policy Implications The findings of this study would be useful to US bank regulators/supervisors in improving the existing regulatory framework by focusing on accounting conservatism as a complement to corporate governance in mitigating the opaqueness and intense information asymmetry that plague banks.

Capital structure and corporate governance of soccer clubs: European evidence Panagiotis Dimitropoulos Article information:To cite this document: Panagiotis Dimitropoulos , (2014),"Capital structure and corporate governance of soccer clubs", Management Research Review, Vol. 37 Iss 7 pp. 658 -678 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.

PurposeThe purpose of this research paper is to investigate the role of corporate governance in earnings management behaviour by US listed banks during the era of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act (2003‐2008).Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines the issue of accounting quality and corporate governance within banking corporations through the use of two different measures of earnings management, namely small positive net income and the difference between discretionary realized security gains and losses and discretionary loan loss provisions (LLPs), by applying a corporate governance index estimated from 63 governance provisions.FindingsThe research found convincing evidence that banks with efficient corporate governance mechanisms report small positive income to a lesser extent than banks with weak governance efficiency. Also well‐governed banks engage less in aggressive earnings management behaviour through the use of discretionary loan loss provisions and realized security gains and losses.Practical implicationsThe findings could prove to be valuable to investors since they must take into consideration the efficiency of each bank's corporate governance and demand supplementary information in order to reach a better investment decision when earnings are not highly informative.Social implicationsThe findings could prove to be useful for regulators since they are responsible for the acceptable level of corporate governance standards. Thus, they must consider strengthening governance mechanisms either though new legislation or stronger enforcement where earnings management is of such magnitude to that serious impedes information transparency and quality.Originality/valueThe present study aims to bridge a gap in the literature by investigating corporate governance and earnings management behaviour during a period of transition to an intensively legalized governance environment (SOX Act). The results contribute further evidence to the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of established corporate governance mechanisms.

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Research question: European football clubs are known for an institutionalized management culture which prioritizes on-field success over financial performance. This creates an extremely competitive context within which most clubs operate, producing debts and deficits. However, in order to secure clubs' long-term financial viability, Union of European Football Association (UEFA) has introduced regulatory and monitoring processes tied to accounting data in order to assess clubs' financial performance. This study aims to determine whether UEFA's framework has an impact on clubs' management policies with regard to accounting quality. Research methods:The study employs a sample of 109 European football clubs for a seven-year period, 2008-2014 (three years before and four years after the regulatory intervention), to investigate the impact of the reform upon management practices related to accounting. Following prior literature, we employ the three most commonly used proxies of accounting quality: earnings management, conditional accounting conservatism and auditor switching. Results and findings: This study demonstrates that, at the expense of accounting quality, club management seeks to promote the image of a financially robust organization in order to secure licensing and, consequently, much needed funding from UEFA. In this manner, the dominance of a management culture which impairs financial performance is further cemented. Implications: UEFA should take into consideration that, in a financially distressed industry focused on achieving success on the field of play, the imposition of regulatory monitoring tied to accounting data inevitably leads to a loss of organizational credibility and transparency. Hence, UEFA's intervention should be accompanied by the imposition of a corporate governance framework which would aim to rearrange club management priorities by facilitating a change in institutionalized mentalities. ARTICLE HISTORY