Institutional Ownership Heterogeneity and Earnings Management Practices: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan

The manipulation of the firms’ earnings reported in the financial statements, also known as earnings management, is common among companies. The current study examined the relationship of institutional ownership heterogeneity and earnings management practices through the Arellano-Bond Dynamic Data-Estimation regression approach. The study adopted the Kothari et al. (2005) model for the measurement of earnings management practices. The research classified the institutional investors into different categories such as mutual funds, pension funds, investment companies, foreign companies, and group ownership. The study analyzed the selected variables by tanking a sample of 206 listed companies on Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) for 2013 to 2018. Consistent with agency theory, the results reveal that mutual funds and financial firms’ ownership curtail earnings management practices. Our results reveal the negligible effect of group ownership, investment companies’ ownership, and pension funds ownership in curtailing the earnings management practices in Pakistan. As a result, the findings support monitoring the role of hedge funds and international ownership in earnings management, which restricts managers’ opportunistic behavior. Thus, the proclivity of earnings management practices by managers is mitigated by mutual funds and foreign ownership as compared to the other institutional ownership structure in Pakistani firms. KCI Citation Count: 0