Qiao, Lu, Adegbite, Emmanuel, and Nguyen, Tam Huy (2024) Chief financial officer overconfidence and earnings management. Accounting Forum. (In Press)

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Abstract

This study explores the relationship between overconfident Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and earnings management. Through the lens of upper echelons and overconfidence theories, and using a large sample of 14,156 observations of US firms from 1999 to 2021 inclusive, our study finds that overconfident CFOs are positively associated with earnings management. We show that overconfident CFOs use earnings management to reduce earnings volatility, given that a smooth performance can release their financing pressure. In doing this, we rule out another possible explanation of overconfident CFOs engaging in earnings management to pursue high compensation. Our findings pass a series of robustness tests, including entropy balancing, the Difference-in-Differences test based on the propensity score matching sample (PSM-DID), and alternative measures of main variables. Our study provides a new determinant of earnings management that has more explanatory power than CFO demographic traits – i.e. CFO cognitive biases. Our findings nonetheless show the “bright” side of CFO overconfidence, helping investors, regulators, and policymakers understand overconfident CFOs’ financial reporting decisions.

Item ID:	78029
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1467-6303
Copyright Information:	© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Date Deposited:	09 Jun 2023 05:50
FoR Codes:	35 COMMERCE, MANAGEMENT, TOURISM AND SERVICES > 3501 Accounting, auditing and accountability > 350199 Accounting, auditing and accountability not elsewhere classified @ 100%
SEO Codes:	13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1303 Ethics > 130399 Ethics not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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