FINANCIAL STATEMENTS TIMELINESS AND REAL EARNINGS MANAGEMENT IN THE EGYPTIAN CONTEXT

Financial statements timeliness (FST) has not been given the suitable attention in the accounting literature of developing countries (e.g. Egypt). Similarly, the real earnings management (REM) activities have not been examined on a large scale for such countries. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the impact of REM on FST for Egyptian listed non-financial companies from 2011 to 2013, that considers the current study to be one of the primary studies that addresses such impact. Three ordinary least square (OLS) regression models were conducted to test the main hypothesis of the study. The descriptive results indicate that, on average, Egyptian listed non-financial companies take 82 days to release their financial statements and perform REM activities, such as sales and production cost manipulations. Further, companies ranged from reporting financial statements as early as 72 days to as late as 100 days. Additionally, a multivariate analysis indicates that both models of REM (the abnormal values of sales and production cost manipulations) are associated significantly with FST. Companies that manage their earnings upward are more likely to accelerate the release of their financial statements and vise versa.