The Relationship between Moral Conscience and the Tendency to Earnings Overstatement: A Test of the Theory of Efficient and Opportunistic Earnings Management

Earnings overstatement is one of the forms of earnings management by firm managers. Moral conscience is also an internal force in man that guides him to moral behavior. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate the role of moral conscience in the earnings management behavior of firms.

The research method is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive and correlational in terms of data collection. The statistical population includes accounting experts working in listed firms on Tehran Stock Exchange. A sample of 205 people was selected from this community. The sampling method is random. The instrument used to measure the variables is questionnaire. Data analysis is based on descriptive statistics and multivariate regression.

The results of this research show that moral conscience has a significant and negative relationship with efficient and opportunistic earnings management. Therefore, moral conscience reduces the behavior of firm management in earnings overstatement.

Human moral behavior is rooted in his awake conscience. Therefore, moving towards an awakened conscience makes a person a moral person.