CEOs’ extensive term of office inhibits discretionary accruals

Abstract

Purpose – CEOs’ (chief executive officer) term of office may explain discretionary accruals as a result of opportunistic behavior arising during certain periods of the term of office. Therefore, CEOs, in their early years of office, have incentives to report results that meet market expectations. In turn, CEOs in their senior year may be motivated to use discretionary accruals to gain private benefits. In this scenario, corporate governance mechanisms play an important role in monitoring relationships. Hence, the purpose of this study is to verify the influence of monitoring mechanisms on the relationship between CEOs’ term of office and discretionary accruals. Design/methodology/approach – Descriptive statistics, multiple cross-sectional regression to estimate the accruals and regression of panel data to test the hypotheses were used. The sample comprised 195 companies listed on BM&FBovespa. Findings – The results indicated that CEOs’ long term of office has a negative impact on the level of discretionary accruals, and thus, Brazilian CEOs with a longer term of office tend to establish a certain reputation in the stock market. On the other hand, it is concluded that CEOs’ intentions, in the first years of term, are positively related to the use of accruals and that the monitoring mechanisms can minimize these CEOs’ opportunistic practices. Originality/value – The results broaden the literature on corporate governance, pointing that different systems of variable remuneration may influence CEOs’ willingness to manage results in their last year of term.