Ethical practices of earnings management: are differences related to gender or occupation?
Résumé
Recent works in the gender literature identify some masculinization of women's behaviors within
companies. However, the scope and significance of this phenomenon remains largely unexplored with most
studies tending to focus on one particular hierarchical position or job. The present study considers the range
of occupations in the accounting sector, identifying the positions of chief financial officer (CFO), financial
analyst, and statutory auditor (the stakeholders) to consider whether the different earnings management (EM)
practices are deployed differently by men and women occupying the same accounting positions. The ethical
EM practices applied to the above three hierarchical positions show that a masculinization process might be
mitigating gender differences among these upper accounting positions. We draw on an original accounting
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stakeholder survey conducted at the international level to propose an econometric model that identifies the
effects of both gender and job position on EM practices. Our results confirm that the relationship between
gender and ethics is not obvious since women tend to favor less ethical EM practices. They confirm also that
decisions about the type of EM depend on the type of stakeholder - CFO, analyst, statutory auditor - involved
in the financial reporting process. We introduce interaction effects which show that these practices per position
depend on gender: female analysts and female auditors are subject to EM definitions that are in line with those
of their male counterparts and in contrast to the position of female CFO, these job positions favor more
ethical instruments. We discuss the implications of the heterogeneous masculinization process we identify.
Overall, our work on the EM phenomenon contributes to research on gender differences and their complexity
by providing more fine grained information on professional differences