Investigating the earnings quality characteristic and earnings management type in bankrupt and distressed companies (case study: companies listed on Tehran Stock Exchange

Earnings management is a condition in which the managers of the business units report earnings according to their willingness not according to economic content of business unit activities. According to Scott (2003), earnings management could be defined as choosing the accounting procedures by manager. In his view, the aim of manager is to achieve certain objectives such as increased rewards, reduced debt, reduced tax, and reduced political costs, and so on (Banimahd et al., 2014). In another definition, earnings management is defined as a state in which managers use judgment in financial reports and manipulate structure of transactions to change financial reports in order to mislead some stakeholders on economic performance of company or to affect the results of contract depending on accounting figures (Healy and Wahlen, 1999). Earnings management can be divided into three groups: white earnings management, black earnings management, and colorless earnings management. White earnings management involves using flexibility in the selecting the method of accounting for the transfer of confidential information on future cash flows, improving the transparency of reports. Black earnings management involves fraud, deception, misrepresentation of financial reports, which reduces transparency of reports. Colorless earnings management means manipulation of financial reports within specific standards that include opportunistic and efficient earnings management (Sajjadi et al., 2012). Accordingly, if managers use their authorities to disseminate confidential information on profitability of company leading to increased value of company, earnings management would be efficient. However, if managers use their authorities to increase personal benefits, the management would be opportunistic (Kurdistani and Tatli, 2014). According to Kang and Kim (2011) view, earnings management affects company productivity and it might destroy the wealth of company stakeholders, since when managers are misled from accepted financial reporting practices to achieve their interests, organizational legitimacy is weakened (Jones, 2011). In recent years, companies have shown greater tendency to apply management measures to cover their poor financial condition. As managers have much motivation for manipulating information in the financial statements, they will find many ways even within the framework of the accounting standard to apply earnings management. Accordingly, discovery of applied earnings management will be difficult in many cases (Hassas Yeganeh and Yazdanian, 2007), especially in bankrupt companies (Li et al, 2013).Research conducted on earnings management of the bankrupt and distressed companies at the global level is very limited and the results of these studies are inconsistent with each other. Significant research has not been conducted in Iran in this regard. However, some foreign researchers found that managers of bankrupt and distressed companies have higher motivation for earnings management (Jabbarzadeh Kangarlouii et al, 2009; Dastgir, 2012; Kordestani and Tatli, 2014). Despite earnings management phenomenon that was spread everywhere during the years, it has been less protested and confronted. In this regard, a concept known as quality of earnings has been emerged. Then, it was used by financial information users for better nderstanding of company status and adopting financial decisions (Ahmadpour et al., 2013). Earnings management has many shared aspects with earnings quality in evaluating the financial health of company (Li et al, 2011) so that higher earnings management involves lower earnings quality (Etamadi et al 2012). Considering earnings quality, several studies have been conducted in Iran and each of them has examined certain dimensions, but different dimensions have not been studied. In line with the importance of this issue, this study examines the quality of earnings characteristics and earnings management type in financially bankrupt and distressed companies among manufacturing companies listed on the Tehran stock exchange. It aims to find answer for the question if quality of earnings characteristic such as quality of accruals has impact on earnings management type of healthy and bankrupt, and distressed manufacturing companies during 2011 to 2014