Earnings management during CEO turnovers

Abstract

This thesis addresses the question of whether CEO changes in Norwegian publicly listed firms leads to earnings management efforts by accruals. We further explore the characteristics around the CEO change and specifics regarding the firm. The empirical findings suggest that newly appointed CEOs in publicly listed Norwegian firms manage earnings downwards in their first year in office by adjusting discretionary accruals. We do not find sufficient evidence of reversals of these accruals the following year. We attribute the last finding to the fact that managers may save these reversals to later periods, e.g. to periods where earnings are low, which may occur several years later.