Earnings Management Practices between Management Opportunistic and non-Opportunistic Behavior: Firm’s Life Cycle Stages Perspective An Applied Study on Listed Egyptian Companies

Some have proposed regression models to measure the extent to which earnings management practices are applied, and they have implicitly assumed that the characteristics of disclosed earnings do not vary at different stages of the Firm's life cycle. A number of studies e.g., Liu (2019; 2006); Chang (2015); Chen et al. (2010) have suggested to modify these models in order to reduce classification errors and increase their explanatory power. As a contribution to these efforts, the current research aimed to treat the theoretical, analytical and empirical approach of the Earnings Management practices from the perspective of the stages of the firm’s life cycle, and to determine whether the residuals of the original regression models refer to the opportunistic behavior of Earnings Management practices, or to the non-opportunistic behavior of Earnings Management practices, or to Both, and to determine the extent to which opportunistic and non-opportunistic behavior of Earnings Management are affected, separately, by the variables of the firm’s life cycle stages. To achieve the goal of the current research, the researcher relied on a sample of (998) views. The extent of the application of the Earnings Management practices was measured based on some relevant previous studies’ measurements e.g., McVay (2006); Roychowdhury (2006); Dechow et al. (1995). Opportunistic and non-opportunistic earnings management practices were measured by estimating regression models for regressing residuals models on the variables of the firm’s life cycle stages and control variables. The normal component of the regression models of the remainder of the original regression models on the variables of the stages of the firm’s life cycle was used to measure the non-opportunistic practices of Earnings management, and its abnormal component was used to measure the opportunistic practices of Earnings management. The variables of the firm’s life cycle stages were measured based on its measurement model proposed in a study Dickinson (2011). The results of the current research indicated the contribution of most of the original regression models in transferring part of the financial impact of real economic events to the residuals of those models before including them in the variables of the firm’s life cycle stages. The results also showed the effect of the stages of introduction, shake out and decline (the stages of growth and maturity a positive (negative) effect on the extent of the application of some Earnings Management practices. The results also indicated the significant effect of a greater number of company life cycle stage variables on the extent to which non-opportunistic Earnings Management practices are applied. Finally, after neutralizing the residuals signal of the first-stage models, the results concluded that opportunistic earnings management practices are applied in various the firm’s life cycle stages.