Earnings Management in Family Firms: Evidence From R&D Cost Capitalization in Italy
通过意大利上市公司研发支出资本化的数据，发现家族企业比非家族企业更少出于平滑利润动机进行盈余管理，但两者在债务契约和杠杆相关动机上相似。
Recent accounting-related scandals have underscored the prevalence of earnings management in financial markets. This article provides empirical evidence on the motivations for earnings management in publicly listed family companies, highlighting the differences from public nonfamily firms. Basing our predictions on an analysis of the salient characteristics of family firms in both an agency and a stewardship framework, we hypothesize that family firms are less sensitive to income-smoothing motivations than are nonfamily firms, while they are similarly motivated to manage earnings for debt-covenant and leverage-related reasons. We test our hypotheses by looking at a specific accrual, R&D cost capitalization, where statistical tests confirm our hypothesized relationships.