To some extent, earnings management cannot be seen as fraud when it follows Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) because GAAP allows alternative presentations of accounting transactions. However, earnings management increases information asymmetry between insiders and outsiders, and it has the potential to decrease
shareholder’s wealth (Park and Shin, 2004). Inappropriate accounting practices reflect thedemand for strong corporate governance and a high quality of audit.
The main purpose of this study is to explore whether audit committee independenceand characteristics of boards of directors influence earnings management through asynthesis review of related theories, accrual methods, and findings from previousempirical studies.
This study finds that both discretionary accruals and abnormal accruals are mostlyemployed as dependent variables to detect earnings manipulation, and Jones model andmodified Jones model are the most reliable models for determining discretionary accruals.However, Kothari et al. (2005) is a new model that contains a lag return on assets toaccount for some of the shortcomings of the Jones and modified Jones models. With someexception, this study also finds that the more independent the members of audit committeeand board, the higher the quality of earnings in financial reporting.