The effect of Board of Directors Characteristics and Audit Committee on Earnings Management Practices of Omani listed Companies

Abstract

This study is intended to examine whether characteristics of board of directors ,audit committee  influence the earnings management practicies in the financial companies listed on the Muscat Securities Market  .the study considers  the accounting –based accruals quality model developed by Dechow and Dichey(2002) by adding additional variables to measure earnings management according to Francis et al(2005) model to know the extent of profit practice. the empirical results of this study depend on information available about(68) companies listed on the Muscat securities Market from year 2017-2018.The study concluded that earnings management are practiced unevenly during the study period ,also revealed that there negative relationship between the number of board , number of audit committee with earnings management. the study also found that there appositive relationship between number of  audit committee meeting ,audit committee independence and earnings management practice. The study recommended that companies should applying corporate governance mechanism because it help to attract  local and international investment.