Board Chairman Characteristics and Real Earnings Management

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of board chairman characteristics on the level of real earnings management for listed firms with the lowest positive earnings on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia. Based on the Ordinary Least Square regression, the findings indicate that board chairman independence and real earnings management have a significant positive association. However, BC’s age, on the other hand, was found to be strongly connected with a lesser degree of real earnings management. Other board chairman characteristics, including tenure, ethnicity, and family membership, did not have a significant influence on the level of real earnings management. In general, the findings are robust and compatible with numerous assumptions, such as incorporating the year dummy variable and eliminating the accruals earnings management control variable. These findings highlight the inconsistent effect of each characteristic of the board chairman. Furthermore, it seems that the board chairman’s characteristics examined in the study are not efficient, except for the board chairman’s age, in reducing the real earnings management where results may be different if the board chairman is a female director. The use of comprehensive characteristics of the board chairman together in one model in this study is novel. However, it can inform policy-makers, firms’ owners, stakeholders, as well as scholars, of the need for improving the board chairman’s role in protecting the firm from real earnings activities, where it has been observed that 97% of the boards of the firms’ are chaired by male directors.