3.2 Research Design
This study uses high quality secondary data such as Google Scholar, the University of
Glasgow database, Social Science Research Network, and Science Direct. The selected
literatures are associated with the relationship between audit committee and board of
directors’ characteristics with respect to earnings management. As mentioned previously,
the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), which was enacted after the Enron and WorldCom
scandals, reemphasizes accounting studies on earnings management. Therefore, the
literature utilized in this study is divided into two parts: pre-Sox and post-Sox period.