Earnings Management Behaviour of Telecom India: A Review of MTNL and Bharti Airtel Ltd.

Earnings behaviour of the management is the key concern for every shareholder. This has assumed importance on account of increasing number of corporate frauds at the global level. It is identified by the level of accruals exercised by the management as it forms the basis of earnings management. Telecom sector being a part of service sector is more vulnerable to this discretionary earnings behaviour. Therefore, the present paper attempts to highlight earnings management behavior in Indian telecom sector on comparative basis of MTNL and Bharti Airtel. MTNL is a leading public sector company, whereas Airtel is a leading private sector company. They have been chosen to appreciate better the different earnings’ behavior in two diverse leading enterprises. Earnings management has been analyzed using five industry practices, viz. (i) quality of earnings, (ii) quality of revenue, (iii) volatility of income, (iv) discretionary accruals, and (v) manipulation score. It is hoped that the findings would make investors’ more aware about earnings management and help them analyze the reported numbers better.