Board Member Characteristics and Ownership Structure Impacts on Real Earnings Management

Abstract

This study tests the impacts of board member characteristics and ownership structure on real earnings management for firms listed in Taiwan. Rather than examining board member characteristics individually, a “board member quality index” is established based on seven different factors of the board member characteristics (independence, ownership, professionalism, education, busyness, meeting attendance and pledges). This index is used as a proxy measure of the characteristics of the board members. The results reveal that better board member quality results in greater suppression of real earnings management and indicate that our index is successful in evaluating the effectiveness of the board member characteristics of firms in Taiwan. In addition, this study finds that institutional investor ownership of Taiwanese firms plays an important role in curbing real earnings management. However, managerial ownership does not influence the ownership-real earnings management relationship.