The main objective of this study is to examine the impact of adopting International
Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on earnings management empirically by using a
sample of private firms in the UK. Discretionary accruals based on Modified Jones
Model are used to measure earnings management. To examine the effects on different
directions of earnings management, the sample is separated into observations with 23
negative discretionary accruals and observations with positive discretionary accruals.
The other two objectives are to investigate whether audit quality and firm size affect
the level of earnings management for IFRS adopters.
The results obtained show that IFRS adoption does not reduce the level of earnings
management; on the contrary earnings manipulation is intensified after the adoption
of new accounting standards for private firms in the UK. However, considering of the
directions of earnings manipulation, the results show that effects of IFRS adoption on
earnings management are not significant for income-increasing or income-decreasing
adopters separately. Moreover, the evidence reinforces the idea that higher audit
quality does not work as a constraint on earnings manipulation. On the contrary, it
increases the level of earnings management for IFRS adopters with
income-decreasing earnings management. It is consistent with previous literature (Van
Tendeloo, 2007) that higher audit quality does not enable a better utilization of IFRS
compared with UK GAAP. Last but not least, larger firm size intensifies earnings
management for IFRS adopters with income-increasing accruals.
The robustness test shows that with original Jones Model, the similar conclusions can
be obtained. The results support that IFRS reporting increases the level of earnings
management. The effect of audit quality and firm size for a firm is aligning with that
of Modified Jones Model. Moreover, under the time-serial approach, IFRS adoption
does not have influence on earnings management. Audit quality and size do not affect
IFRS adopters’ manipulation, neither.
This paper contributes to the existing literature by exploring the effects of IFRS
adoption on earnings management for non-listed companies, since most of the
relevant studies only focused on public firms. Furthermore, the effects of audit quality
and size on earnings managers of unlisted IFRS adopters are also examined.
Some limitations may be considered in interpreting the results. First, as IFRS is
mandatory for listed firms in the UK merely from the year 2005, the time duration is
not long enough to conduct unbiased analysis. So it is suggested to take longer time
duration for further research as such. Second, the discretionary accruals are only
measured by Modified Jones Models. Even though this model has been frequently
used on detecting earnings management, its effectiveness is still controversial. Third,
as the descriptive statistics show, only 520 (7.58%) firms are reported under IFRS, the
results might be biased due to the small proportion of firms adopting the new
accounting standards.24
The current work could be extended by future research. First, it is possible to examine
the IFRS effects in other European countries. Second, it might be interesting to
compare effects under different measurements. By using different approaches to
detect earnings management, the results could be more thorough and reliable.