However, some prior work has shown that equity incentives can lead to opportunistic actions by management (e.g., Cheng and Warfield 2005; Bergstresser and Philippon 2006). To the extent that lax internal controls provide the opportunity for earnings management, the link between accounting earnings and share prices, along with the motivation provided by equity incentives to increase share prices, may provide an incentive for managers to want weaker internal controls. Consequently managers are expected to weigh the benefits of a lax internal control environment (e.g., the ability to manage earnings) against its potential costs (e.g., a stock price drop if the firm receives an adverse internal control opinion), where both the cost and benefits increase with equity incentives.