The Relationships Between Managerial Overconfidence, Audit Committee, CEO Duality and Audit Quality and Accounting Misstatements

Abstract

This paper discusses the relationships between managerial overconfidence, financial distress, audit committee, CEO duality and audit quality and the occurrence of material accounting misstatements by Malaysian listed companies. Managerial overconfidence and financial distress are viewed as motives for accounting misstatements in this study. Audit committee characteristics, i.e., independence and expertise of its members, CEO duality and audit quality are viewed as the ‘loopholes’ in corporate governance mechanisms that provide opportunities for proprietors to issue accounting misstatements. The sample for this study consists of 237 Malaysian listed companies, which includes data from misstated company reports with its respective matched data of non-misstated company reports. The results of this study show that financial distress and CEO duality are significantly related to the occurrence of accounting misstatements. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge on how to mitigate accounting misstatements, especially with the inclusion of the managerial overconfidence variable, which is a new addition to the research on accounting misstatements in Malaysia.