Earnings management is the situation in which firmsû managers report firmsû
earnings, as they wish rather than as the economic substance dictates (Healy and
Wahlen, 1999). Reported earnings numbers do not thus reflect the actual underlying
economic substance of the firm. External auditors play an important role in monitoring
firms, resisting managementûs opportunistic behaviour, and increasing the integrity of
financial reports. DeAngelo (1981) defined audit quality as the joint probability that an
auditor has competence to discover and independence to report a breach in the
clientûs accounting system. If this definition of audit quality is hold, a quality auditor
should discover and report any misstatements including earnings manipulation.
Earnings management was measured by discretionary accruals and tested by
comparing its means and medians in each type of auditorûs report and size of audit
firms. Research results showed that discretionary accruals differed among firms with
different types of auditor opinions. Further analysis by types of audit firms reported
difference in means of discretionary accruals for clean and unqualified with explanation