BEHAVIOUR OF THE DISCRETIONARY ACCRUALS IN TIME: EMPIRICAL STUDY IN THE AMERICAN FIRMS FOOD

Abstract

The main aim of this research study is to point out the vital importance of high-quality exterior audits to limit discretionary accounting, as it could distort a company’s commercial results. The research introduces a well-founded hypothesis on the preventive powers of high-quality audits, as it can act as a strong exterior control. The research focuses on testing the complex relationship between earnings management and investors’ behavior within the public-listed companies from the food industry. The research gathers credible annual comprehensive data from thirty-five publicly-listed firms from the United States. It encompasses the twenty years prior to 2024, as it includes the twenty years prior to 2024. Additionally, the gathered data has gone through a refined procedure of processing using advanced software from EViews to achieve high accuracy. In the twenty years, the findings indicate huge structural, organizational, and institutional changes within commercial reporting. In opposition, it has stressed a huge impact from exterior international norms related to auditing. The research has also indicated huge advantages from following global norms, including ISAs. In relation to investors’ behavior, it indicated huge difficulty in recognizing hidden accounting abuse without powerful regulation, including high-quality exterior audits. By enhancing exterior audit quality, it has a huge impact on making a transparent account credible. In contrast, it has protected investors from huge cognitive, as well as huge behavior, adjustments from distortive commercial info. In a nutshell, it has stressed the huge importance of exterior audits as a regulating factor to avoid negative manipulation from executives, whether it is personal manipulation or presenting commercial info according to a predetermined goal at the expense of accuracy.