We explore whether NHS hospitals managed their earnings upward before applying for Foundation Trust (FT) status, a scheme that allowed them greater financial freedom and management autonomy, in order to present an overly positive picture and increase their chances for a successful application....

The International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 15, ‘Revenue from Contracts with Customers’, became effective for National Health Service (NHS) bodies from the annual period beginning 1 April 2018. NHS Foundation Trusts, as part of UK public sector organisations, adopted IFRS for their...

This study examines the relationship between institutional pressures to provide social benefits and the discretionary accrual behavior of nonprofit firms. I examine this issue within the context of US nonprofit hospitals, an economically significant and politically rich setting where firms face...

We examine how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act (FDAAA) of 2007, which requires additional disclosures regarding clinical trial results, impacts information asymmetry between the disclosing pharmaceutical firm and capital market participants, the general public, academics,...

In recent decades, the business world – as well as society at large – has increasingly recognised the relevance of environmental factors as essential determinants of economic development and business decisions. Due to these short- and long-term effects of environmental factors on both the...

Barton (2001) and Pincus and Rajgopal (2002) show that earnings management through discretionary accruals and derivative hedging are partial substitutes in smoothing earnings before 1999. In this study, we investigate whether FAS 133 regarding hedge accounting in 2000 has influenced the relative...

In a sample of large private Spanish subsidiaries, we find that the magnitude of discretionary accruals is significantly higher when the parent company is foreign than when it is local. Our tests support the thesis of recent research on earnings management strategies within multinational...

Prior research finds that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (US-SOX) of 2002 has affected earnings management in the United States. Cohen et al. (2008) indicate that accrual-based earnings management has declined since the passage of US-SOX, while real earnings management has increased. Further, Gilliam et...