Since managers may have incentives to manage earnings either upward or downward,
we use the absolute value of the abnormal accruals as a proxy for earnings quality
(DeFond and Park, 1997; Bartov et al., 2000). To the extent that better monitoring of the
financial reporting process leads to greater financial transparency, the firm is expected
to have a lesser degree of earnings management, and thus fewer abnormal accruals.
Accordingly, a negative relationship between the governance quality and the absolute
value of abnormal accruals is predicted