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Do CEO Characteristics Impact a Company's Earnings Quality?
The problem of efficient companies’ earnings quality is of great interest to researchers nowadays. There is a significant influence of both chief executive officer (further – CEO) and earnings quality on the company's financial activities, so in this paper we determine the impact of CEO characteristics (both CEO power and personality) on the earnings quality. A distinctive feature and novelty of this paper is the analysis of results for different markets (developed and emerging), using different approaches for measuring earnings quality, along with the inclusion of a series of CEO characteristics which have not previously been researched by scientists (CEO experience, number of Board positions held by a CEO or simultaneously acting as a CFO, CEOpromoted from within, and the number of times that a CEO changes within a company). The influence of CEO characteristics on the earnings quality by country is noted for companies in America and Europe. However, the hypothesis regarding differences in developed and emerging markets (testing data from Asian markets) has not been confirmed. The results of this paper indicate that managerial characteristics have a very important impact on the company's earnings quality and future development. Significant characteristics of the CEO (gender, age, work of the executive director as the chairman of the board of directors, seniority, awards) are key for analysis, because they reflect his or her work experience, hardwork and professional abilities.