CEO turnover, CFO turnover and earnings quality

We analyze the impact of 71 CEO changes and 120 CFO changes on earnings management in France, over the period 2007-2015. For the year of the CEO change, we find that CEO change is positively and significantly associated with earnings management, whereas no significant association is found for CFO changes. However, CEO change is only positively and significantly associated with earnings management when the incoming CEO is sitting on the board and the outgoing CEO is not sitting on the board. Thus, our findings allow us to better understand in which context management turnover is associated with lower earnings quality. Overall, our results should be interesting for investors who care about the quality of financial information