Studying the Moderating Role of Audit Committee Independence in the Relationship between CEO Narcissism and Real Earnings Management

A manager’s personality and psychological attributes may influence his or her performance, thereby affecting the quality of financial reporting by companies. On the one hand, today there is an increasing requirement for protecting the interests of investors as providers of investment and the most important group of accounting information and financial report users. The development of audit committees is among the mechanisms expected to be effective in protecting the interests of different groups of accounting information and financial report users. In order to act effectively, an audit committee must be independent. Therefore, the present study aims to examine the role played by the independence of audit committee members as a quality of an audit committee to identify how it may moderate the relationship between managers' narcissism and real earnings management in the firms listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) using a statistical sample consisting of 642 observations (year-firm) over the period 2013-2018. The findings obtained through hypothesis testing using statistical analysis of panel data suggest that independence of audit committee members does not moderate the relationship between CEO's narcissism and real earnings management through abnormal cash flow, real earnings management through abnormal production, and real earnings management through abnormal discretionary expenses. Thus, the independence of audit committee members as a moderator cannot moderate the relationship between CEO's narcissism and real earnings management