Is boardroom diversity associated with the quality of earnings?

Authors

Trang Hoang, University of WollongongFollow
Indra Abeysekera, Central Queensland University, University of WollongongFollow
Shiguang Ma, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

92218

Publication Details

Hoang, T. C., Abeysekera, I. & Ma, S. (2014). Is boardroom diversity associated with the quality of earnings?. Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ) Annual Conference (pp. 1-35). Australia: Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand.

Link to publisher version (URL)

Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand Annual Conference

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between boardroom diversity and earnings quality in a sample of Vietnamese listed firms. Two dimensions of the boardroom diversity measure in this study are a wide range of demographic and structural attributes of board of directors, including diversity-of-boards index (dissimilarities among firm boards, which refer to board structure) and diversity-in-boards index (dissimilarities among directors within a board, which refer to demographic attributes of board members). The earnings quality is an aggregate earnings quality measure based on four accounting based measures of earnings quality, namely accruals quality, earnings persistence, earnings predictability and earnings smoothness. We find a significant, positive relationship between diversity-of-boards and earnings quality; while the relationship between diversity-in-boards and earnings quality is non-linear, with a U-shaped curve.