Earning Managemen Good or Bad ???

Dari hasil survei yang dilaukan E. Mulford dan E Comiskey terhadap para akademisi, CFO, security analyst, lenders, akuntan public,dan mahasiswa MBA menunjukan adanya pro dan kontra atas praktek earning management yang dilakukan oleh perusahaan, hasil survey menunjukan, earning management adalah tindakan yang dapat merugikan investor dan tindakan abusive earning management yang dilakukan manjemen ditindak tegas oleh regulator (SEC) .

Ringkasan survai dapat dilihat dari kutipan berikut ini :
Financial professionals are generally in agreement on when earning management crosses the line between the exercise of the legitimate flexibility inherent in GAAP and abusive or fraudulent financial reporting. However, a nontrivial subset of professionals appears to understate the potential seriousness of certain earnings management action.
Financial professionals agree that earning management is common, that is has increased over the past decade, and that the SEC campaign against abusive earning management is necessary.
The major objectives of earning management are to reduce earning volatility. Support or increase stock price, increase earning –based compensation, and meet consensus earning forecast of analysts.
The major categories of earning management action in order of frequency, are the timing of expense recognition, big bath and cookie jar reserves, the timing of revenue recognition, and real action. While not in conflict with GAAP real action still could be used to produce misleading result.
Trend analysis (analytical review), analysis of high-likelihood condition and circumstances, footnote review, days statistic, and the proximity of actual to estimated result are the most frequently mentioned earning management detection technique.
Earning management is viewed as more likely to be harmful than helpful.
Harmful earning management effect are see to include the distortion of financial performance, inflation of share price, and potential damage to firm performance. Possible helpful effect from earning management include a reduction in earning volatility and share–price volatility, the potential for management to signal its private information, helping to met forecast and rationalize expectation.