AUDIT QUALITY AND EARNINGS MANAGEMENT: EVIDENCE FROM TURKEY

Earnings management is one of the controversial issues in the current business environment. The value relevance of earnings is adversely influenced by earnings management. The objective of this study is to analyze the association between audit quality and earnings management for non-financial firms quoted on Borsa Istanbul. Ordinary least square regression analysis is employed in this study in analyzing the association between earnings management and audit quality. Three different proxies for audit quality (auditor independence, audit industry specialization and auditor tenure) were analyzed based on a sample of 97 non-financial firms quoted on Borsa Istanbul from 2013 to 2018. Empirical analysis indicates that auditor independence and audit industry specialization are significantly negatively related with likelihood of earnings management and long-term auditor and client relationship enables the management of firms to more actively engage in earnings management. This paper finds support for the notion that the high-quality audit is one of the prominent factors that can mitigate earnings management practices