managers ' accounting choices
corporate managers also introduce noise and bias into accounting data through their own accounting decisions. managers have a variety of incentives to exercise their accounting discretion to achieve certain objectives.
accounting-based debt covenants. managers may make accounting decisions to meet certain contractual obligations in their debt covenants. for example, firms' lending agreements with banks and other debt holders require them to meet covenants related to interest coverage, working capital ratios,and net worth,all defined in terms of accounting numbers. violation of these agreements may be costly because lenders can trigger penalties including demanding immediate payment of their loans. managers of firms close to violating debt covenants have an incentive to select accounting policies and estimates to reduce the probability of covenant violation. the debt covenant motivation for managers' accounting decisions has been analyzed by a number of accounting researchers.
management compensation. another motivation for managers' accounting choice comes from the fact that their compensation and job security are often tied to reported profits. for example,many top managers receive bonus compensation if they exceed certain pre-specified profit targets. this provides motivation for managers to choose accounting policies and estimates to maximize their expected compensation. stock option awards can also potentially induce managers to manage earnings. options provide managers with incentives to understate earnings prior to option grants to lower the firm's current share price and hence the option exercise price, and to inflate earnings and share prices at the time of the option exercise.
corporate control contests. in corporate control contests, such as hostile takeovers, competing management groups attempt to win over the firm's shareholders. accounting numbers are used extensively in debating managers' performance in these contests. therefore,managers may make accounting decisions to influence investor perceptions in corporate control contests. also,when takeovers are not necessarily hostile but structured as a share-for-share merger,the acquiring firm may overstate its performance to boots its share price and by this reduce the share exchange ratio.
tax considerations. managers may also make reporting choices to trade off between financial reporting and tax considerations. for example, us firms are required to use lifo inventory accounting for shareholder reporting in order to use it for tax reporting. under lifo, when prices are rising, firms report lower profits, thereby reducing tax payments. some firms may forgo the tax reduction in order to report higher profits in their financial statements. in countries where such a direct link between financial reporting and tax reporting does not exist, tax considerations may still indirectly affect manager's reporting decisions. for example, firms that recognize losses aggressively in their tax statements may support their aggressive tax choices by having the financial reporting treatment of these losses conform to their tax treatment. having no divergence between the tax treatment and the financial reporting treatment could increase the probability that tax authorities allow the tax treatment.