Definition of earnings management
An organization’s primary aim is to make money and the ultimate goals is to maximize the shareholders wealth. Not handiest do the company proprietors want to have a profit at the cease of every accounting length, however they also want the company financial statements to look as proper as they can. In any case, the monetary statements are what capacity investors and lenders look at when they make the decision whether or how not to lend the enterprise money or to become an investor. That is wherein the idea of earnings control comes into play. Profits control, in a nutshell, is the innovative use of different accounting strategies to make monetary statements look higher.
There are various definitions of earnings management observed within the present literature, it’s miles defined via Schipper (1989, p.92) because the “functional intervention in the external monetary reporting technique with the intent of acquiring some private advantage.”
Even as these definitions range, they’ve a few commonalities: they consciousness on the intervention within the monetary reporting process to gain some private benefit, that’s implicit of opportunistic practices. The definition of Schipper means that activities in which manager’s influence pronounced profits for non-public advantage are taken into consideration earnings management practices. This definition is alternatively broad and lacks deeper insights into the particular mechanisms and targets of profits management. However, Healy and Wahlen’s definition is targeted mainly at the judgement that managers can use in economic reporting and the structuring of transactions to modify monetary reports to lie to stakeholders. It indicates that manipulation is inherent inside the exercise of profits management by using stating that judgement is utilized in economic reporting misinforming stakeholders. The definition of Mulford and Comiskey emphases comparable manipulation however is greater unique regarding the motive in the back of earnings management, this is the need to fulfill predetermined goals or analyst forecasts. In addition, this definition makes smoother, greater sustainable profits a further goal of earnings management.
The phenomenon of earnings management is positioned beneath the umbrella of what has emerged as called innovative accounting. Mulford and Comiskey (2002) talk to creative accounting practices as any and all steps taken to engage in aggressive preference and application of accounting concepts, fraudulent monetary reporting, or earnings management. Although the definitions of income management may also imply that it’s far a fraudulent pastime, profits control differs from fraud due to the fact managers can engage in profits control within the barriers of the ability afforded via typically generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) without violating these requirements, making it a legal exercise. Managers can also engage in profits smoothing. This is a form of income management that is described via Mulford and Comiskey (2002) as a method by using which managers take away peaks and troughs from an ordinary profits collection in an effort to provide earnings a greater strong outlook. This includes steps taken to reduce and keep profits at some point of suitable years to be used in destiny, less profitable years.