The Influence Of Board Characteristics On Earnings Quality:the Moderating Effecting Of Shareholder Activism

The board of directors acts as the intermediary in the principal-agent,responsible for the company's business decision-making and personnel selection.The surplus of an enterprise reflects the operating results of the enterprise and is the residual rights and interests enjoyed by the owner.The quality of earnings will affect the healthy development of enterprises and the target interests of investors and creditors.Through supervising managers,the board of directors formulates development goals and strategic guidelines to promote better development of enterprises and improve their earnings.However,the board of directors will conspire with managers to whitewash the company's performance out of its own fame and wealth,shareholder pressure,public opinion influence and so on,which will have a negative impact on earnings quality.Similarly,shareholders have the right to determine the composition,of the board of directors.Shareholders'behavior will inevitably affect the relationship between the characteristics of the board of directors and the quality of earnings.Does the Board's Characteristics Affect Earnings Quality?Scholars at home and abroad are keen to study the size of the board of directors,the combination o.f two posts,personal characteristics rarely appear,but such characteristics will affect the behavior and thinking of directors,and then affect the quality of earnings.Moreover,the behavior of shareholders has not been included in these studies.Thereforet,this paper re-elaborates and classifies the characteristics of the board of directors,regards the positive behavior of shareholders as a moderating variable,and deeply stu dies the impa ct of the characteristics of the board of directors under the positive behavior of shareholders on earnings quality.This paper chooses 720 companies listed on GEM flrom 2009 to 2017 as the research object,and uses Guotaian database to obtain relevant data,constructs variables such as director's gender,age,educational level,academic background,overseas background,attendance rate of shareholders'meeting,and manually calculates the manageable profits of sample companies to measure earnings quality.By sorting out the relevant research and theory,the regression model is constructed.The empirical results show that:(1)female directors are positively correlated with earnings quality.The higher the proportion of female directors,the better the earnings quality of enterprises;(2)The age of directors and earnings quality change in the same direction.Means to improve the age of directors,which is beneficial to the earnings quality of enterprises;(3)Directors'educational background and earnings quality change in the same direction.It shows that the board of directors with high education level can improve the earnings quality of enterprises obviously.(4)The academic background of directors an d the earnings quality of enterprises change in the same direction.That is,the more directors with academic background,the better earnings quality.(5)Directors'overseas background and earnings quality change in the same direction.It shows that the higher the pr portion of directors with overseas background is,the better the earnings quality will be.(6)Shareholdersepositive behavior will weaken the positive impact of board characteristics on earnings quality.The more positive shareholder behavior,the weaker the positive relationship between the board of directors and earnings quality.According to the results of this study,how to play a good role of the board of directors and shareholders has become the key.On the one hand,we should raise the threshold of board selection,pay attention to directors'educational background and experience;optimize the gender and age structure of the board of directors,and increase the proportion of female directors and senior directors;on the other hand,when shareholders perform their functions,they should consider the feasibility of objectives and the feedback performance of directors,so as not to exert too much pressure on the board of directors and management.This paper looks at the board of directors and shareholders from a dialectical point of view,makes full use of their strengths an.d weaknesses,improves the composition of board members,and rationally exerts the positive role of shareholders'behavior.Its research has a great positive effect on listed companies.