Customer Bargaining Power and Accrual-Based Earnings Management

Abstract

The present study provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between customer bargaining power and accrual-based earnings management using a sample of United States (U.S.) firms, with 16,084 firm-year observations, over the period 2000-2016. The absolute value of residuals from the modified-Jones model as described in Dechow et al. (1995) and the Kothari et al. (2005) models, respectively, were used as the proxy variable for the quality of accruals of a company. Results from the multivariate analysis, after controlling for firm-specific and market-specific variables, indicated that firms with high customer bargaining seem to engage more in opportunistic accrual management activities.