Financial Accounting Research
Year:2012 | Volume:4 | Issue:2 (12)|Papers Count:10

The main objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between changes in inventory, changes in profitability and firm’s value. Another goal of this study is to examine the influence of changes in accounts receivable and administrative costs and sales on the relationship between changes in inventory, changes in profitability and firm’s value. For this purpose, four main hypotheses and six sub-hypotheses were developed. Samples of 96 companies were selected having features proposed in this survey during from 2004 to 2009. In this research we used Hausman, Chow and Breush-Pagan LM tests to determine an appropriate estimate model. Also, to test the research hypotheses we conducted correlation analysis (Pearson coefficient) and regression. The results of testing sub-hypotheses 1-1 and the main second hypothesis indicated significant negative relationship between changes in inventory, short-term changes in firm earnings and changes in firm’s value. Further, the results of sub-hypotheses 1-2 and 1-3 indicated no significant relationship between changes in inventory with long-term changes in firm earnings and changes in asset returns. Furthermore, the results of third and fourth hypotheses show that there is no significant relationship between control variables with changes in inventories, firm’s profitability and value.

Managers accomplish earning management through real earning manipulation and accrual earning manipulation. Accomplishment of both options of earnings management has relative restrictions and relative costs. The problem is whether earning management choices accomplish simultaneously or one option accomplished before another. Therefore, the aim objective of this paper is to determine the substitutive relation between earning management choices (i.e. real earning management and accrual management). For hypothesis test in this study, data for 117 listed companies on Tehran Stock Exchange for period of 1380–1388 is used. To test research hypotheses, Hausman test and multiple regression model approach is applied. The results of this research indicate a substitutive relation between accrual earning management and real earning management. Also the results indicate that managers determine real earning management before accrual earning management.

In this study the relationship between the competitive structure of products and conditional accounting conservatism in Tehran Stock Exchange has been examined. Data of the sample companies for a period 1380-1388 is collected. In order to estimate conditional accounting conservatism, Basu model (1997) is used. Similar to Folsoms model (2009), product market competition constructs are added to Basu model and the main model of research is obtained. Several criteria is applied to measure competition because, competition is a multi-dimensional case. The most important ones include: the product substitutability, the volume of demand, entry barriers, concentration ratio and the number of companies. The relationship between competitive structures and conditional conservatism in general and specific hypotheses are set. A five-fold aspect of the relationship between competition and conditional conservatism in five specific hypotheses is investigated. Using these dimensions, a combination of variables is obtained and as general hypotheses, the relationship between competitive and conditional accounting conservatism is investigated. Testing of specific hypotheses suggests that contrary to expectations, there is significant and inverse relationship between product substitutability, and conditional conservatism. The relationship between the volume of demand and the number of member companies, industries with conditional conservatism as expected, is positive and significant. Also, the relationship between entry barriers and the desire for conditional conservatism, and the reverse is significant. Finally, the relationship between the concentration ratio and conditional conservatism as it was expected is inverse, but it is poorly observed. The test of overall hypothesis shows that there is a direct and significant relationship between structures of competitive products and conditional accounting conservatism in financial reporting.

Using of prediction models is one of the methods of financial performance prediction. Financial ratios are employed as predictive variable in prediction models. The main purpose of this study is to compare the incremental information content of accrual and cash ratios for prediction and evaluation of the financial performance of business entities by data mining models. In align with research purposes, two hypotheses have been developed. To test these hypotheses, a model of artificial intelligent and a model of statistical techniques are applied. Sample of companies which were listed in Tehran Stock Exchange between 2004 and 2009 was selected. For accurate evaluation of the financial performance, companies have been separated into two groups of weak and strong. Prediction accuracy shows information content of applied ratios in the two models. The results of this study indicate that cash ratios in predicting strong financial performance and accrual ratios in predicting weak financial performance have more incremental information content in two models.

This paper investigates the relationship between accounting information reliability and return on stock (ROS). So we introduce a comprehensive definition and categorization of accruals in which each accrual category is rated according to its reliability. Previous research findings show lower persistence for less reliable accruals. If investors fully understand accruals reliability concept, there shouldn't be more negative relation between less reliable accruals and future return on stock (ROS). This research is an applied and correlation research that implements a pooled data. Our population includes all listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) for the period 1380 to 1387. We analyzed a sample of 141 companies. Results of this research don't confirm a more negative relation between less reliable accruals and future stock returns.

In this study we investigate the relationship between earnings management (EM) and four earnings attributes (as proxies of earnings quality). The four earnings attributes used in this study are accruals quality, earnings persistence, earnings predictability, and earnings smoothness. Especially we test opportunistic EM that predicts EM has unfavorable effects on various dimensions of accounting information quality. In order to test hypotheses the four earnings attributes and discretionary accruals (as as proxies of EM) are measured for 303 firms during 2002-2009 period (total 1530 firm-year observations). Results show that an increase in discretionary accruals is accompanied by decreases in magnitude of earnings attributes. Among those, accruals quality is more affected by earnings management than the other attributes. In order to determine definitive effects of earnings management on earnings quality, we used cost of stockholders’ equity to rank earnings attributes importance from investors’ perspective and to compute earnings quality score for each firm. Results show that discretionary accruals damage earnings quality.

Management earnings forecast is one of the most important sources of information for investors and other people. On the other hand, corporate governance is one factor that is expected to affect the quality improvement of information disclosed by companies. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms (i.e. the percentage of the outside member of the board of directors, CEO duality, institutional ownership and auditing quality) and earnings forecast accuracy. The research sample is 96 Companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange for the period of 1384 -1389. The multivariable regression model for pooled data used to test the research hypotheses. The findings indicate that there is a positive significant relationship between the percentage of the outside member of the board of directors and earnings forecast accuracy. The findings indicate no significant relationship between other corporate governance mechanisms including CEO duality, institutional ownership and auditing quality and earnings forecast accuracy.