Impact of Profitability, Firm Size and Investment Opportunities on Earning Quality: Evidence from Pakistan

Abstract

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the impact of profitability, firm size, and investment opportunities on earning quality of companies in Pakistan. For this purpose, 100 non-financial companies were selected from the top industries of Pakistan registered on the Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2014 to 2021. This study has taken earning quality as a dependent variable, while profitability, firm size and investment opportunities are used as the independent variables. Design/ Methodology/ Approach: For the purpose of investigation, descriptive statistics are presented and the multi co-linearity test, Hausman test, and random effect regression model are conducted. A purposive sampling technique is used in this research. Findings: The research indicates that the profitability and investment opportunities have a significant and positive effect on earning quality of the companies. On the other side, the research demonstrated that the firm size has a significant negative effect on earning quality. The reason behind this relation is that the large-scale firms expands their discretionary accruals and manipulate the earnings as they want to show the healthy financial circumstances of the company in the market, so that they can attract investors. Therefore, by doing this manipulation, earning quality is impacted, which indicates the negative effect of firm size. Implications/ Originality/ Value: This study would help the investors and stakeholders to better understand the financial condition of the non-financial companies of Pakistan before investment. Depending upon all the results, it is recommended that all companies must improve their earning quality and present it without manipulation so that the investors and other stakeholders can make more investments and profits.