The Impact of Board Characteristics on Earnings Management in Vietnamese Listed Pharmaceutical Companies

The quality of financial reports and its impacts on the economic decisions of interested users have been the remarkable topic for many academic researchers. Earnings Management (EM) conceals the actual operating results and financial position of the company that stakeholders should have known. Some previous studies have found that board characteristics had impacts on EM. The main objective of this study is to inspect and examine the impacts of board characteristics on EM in the Vietnamese listed pharmaceutical companies. This study applied a quantitative research approach with secondary data of 21 Vietnamese pharmaceutical listed companies from 2012 to 2022. The result indicates that the higher number of non-executive directors on board would reduce EM while the dual role of CEO and Chairman would increase EM. The board size and the presence of woman directors on board have no impact on EM.