Earnings management using revenue classification shifting – evidence from the IFRS adoption period

Minyoung Noh, Doocheol Moon and Laura Parte

International Journal of Accounting & Information Management, 2017, vol. 25, issue 3, 333-355

Abstract: Purpose - This paper aims to provide evidence of an unintended observable consequence of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption by examining opportunistic use of earnings management through revenue as well as expense items classification shifting in the year of transition. Design/methodology/approach - To document classification shifting, the authors take advantage of the Korean mandatory IFRS adoption in 2011, when broad discretion was given to publicly traded companies’ managers to present operating profits. Findings - It is found that companies strategically use both revenues and expenses to manage core earnings at the time of transition by shifting other income as a common tactic to improve their operating performance and special expenses just to meet or beat earnings targets. Originality/value - Given the concerns of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about classification shifting behavior and the debate over whether the SEC should mandate the use of IFRS for US companies, the findings of this study are timely and contribute to authors’ understanding of the unintended consequences of mandatory IFRS adoption.

Keywords: IFRS adoption; Classification shifting; Core earnings; Earnings benchmarks; Other operating income; Special expense items; M40; M41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

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:eme:ijaimp:ijaim-07-2016-0071

DOI: 10.1108/IJAIM-07-2016-0071

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Accounting & Information Management is currently edited by Dr Xin (Robert) Luo and Professor Han Donker

More articles in International Journal of Accounting & Information Management from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().