In this study, we examine the relationship between employee effort within the firm and earnings management, using data on working hours and discretionary accruals. With higher employee effort, we find less earnings management among U.S. firms. This result is stronger when earnings are more predictable and persists after we control for endogeneity. We also find smaller earnings discontinuities with higher employee effort. Our domestic results remain the same with a global sample. Our results suggest that earnings management enables benchmark beating with greater precision than can high employee effort alone, but also that high-effort firms may be misclassified as earnings manipulators.

在这项研究中，我们使用工作时间和可自由支配应收数据，研究了公司内部员工的努力与收益管理之间的关系。随着员工的努力，我们发现美国公司的盈余管理减少。当收入更可预测时，此结果会更强，并且在控制内生性之后仍然存在。我们还发现，随着员工努力程度的提高，收入不连续性较小。我们的国内结果与全球样本相同。我们的结果表明，收益管理比仅依靠高水平的员工努力就可以更精确地进行基准测试，而且，将精力充沛的公司归类为收益操纵者。