The Impact of Institutional Investors on Firms Accounting Flexibility: Evidence from Jordan

In this paper the existence of the impact of the institutional investor on the firm’s accounting flexibility in generating discretionary accruals was verified. For this purpose balanced data cross-sectional regression model for all 70th Jordanian manufacturing companies listed at Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) over eleven years from 2000 to 2010 was utilized. In the regression model discretionary working capital accruals (DWCA), proxy for earnings manipulation, was set as the dependant variable. Independent variables were; the percentage of the institutional investors ownership of common stock in firm as a proxy of the institutional investors (IIP), the managerial ownership (MAO), firm’s size (SIZE), leverage ratio (LEV), and return on sales ratio (ROS). The econometric model was estimated. The results of various analysis and tests carried out in this study confirm the monitoring role of the institutional investors and the role played by the institutional investor in alleviating the practices of earnings management