4. Research design and variable measurement
4.1 Measuring abnormal accruals
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.
Abnormal accruals are calculated using the modified Jones model (Dechow et al.,
1995):