The Relation between Accounting Comparability and Earning Management

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to assess the relation between accounting comparability and earning management method selection. Comparability is a qualitative characteristic of accounting information. It makes information users' able to identify and understand similarities and differences between two set of information and use them in their decision making. Accrual earning management is a potential factor which can seriously damage comparability. We defined comparability as a characteristic of accounting system outputs and the assessed companies' return and earning which were in an industry. We examined a sample of 72 companies of the Tehran stock exchange in 6 industries during 2005 to 2015. Findings show that accounting comparability has no relation with real and accrual earning management.

Keywords

• Accrual earning management
• Comparability
• Decision making
• managers
• Real earning management