CEO duality, earnings quality and board independence

Sandra Alves

Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting, 2021, vol. 21, issue 2, 217-231

Abstract: Purpose - This study draws on agency, theory to evaluate the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) duality and earnings quality, proxied by discretionary accruals. Additionally, this study aims to examine whether board independence moderates the relationship between CEO duality and earnings quality. Design/methodology/approach - This study uses a fixed-effects regression model to examine the effect of CEO duality on earnings quality and to test whether board independence moderates that relationship for a sample of non-financial listed Portuguese firms-year from 2002 to 2016. Findings - Consistent with agency theory, this study suggests that CEO duality decreases earnings quality. Further, the results also suggest that the earnings quality reduction associated with CEO duality is attenuated when the board of directors has a higher proportion of independent directors. Practical implications - The findings based on this study provide useful information to investors and regulators in evaluating the impact of CEO duality on earnings quality and the effect of board independence on the role of CEO duality, especially under concentrated ownership. Originality/value - To the knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the role of board independence on the association between CEO duality and earnings quality. In addition, this paper is the first empirical study to investigate the direct and indirect effect of CEO duality on earnings quality in Portugal.

Keywords: CEO duality; Earnings quality; Board independence; Agency theory; M41; M42; G34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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:jfrapp:jfra-07-2020-0191

DOI: 10.1108/JFRA-07-2020-0191

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting is currently edited by Prof. Aziz Jaafar and Prof Khaled Hussainey

More articles in Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().