The Impact of CEO Narcissism on Earnings Management

Francesco Capalbo, Alex Frino, Ming Ying Lim, Vito Mollica and Riccardo Palumbo

Abacus, 2018, vol. 54, issue 2, 210-226

Abstract: We provide the first empirical test of the relation between CEO narcissism and earnings manipulation. We test the hypothesis that narcissistic leaders over‐identify themselves with the organizations they lead and expend considerable effort to achieve their goals, including by engaging in unethical behaviour. Earnings announcements are highly anticipated information releases by organizations. They are a key performance indicator used to evaluate the performance of CEOs. This study examines the use of first person singular pronouns by CEOs in response to questions at analyst conferences to measure narcissism. We provide evidence that firms with narcissistic CEOs engage in accruals management to manage earnings positively, highlighting the important effect of CEO personality on accounting choices.

Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/abac.12116

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:abacus:v:54:y:2018:i:2:p:210-226

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0001-3072

Access Statistics for this article

Abacus is currently edited by G.W. Dean and S. Jones

More articles in Abacus from Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().