Sustainability Engagement and Earnings Management: The Italian Context

Abstract

This study aims at exploring the effect of sustainability engagement on earnings management (EM) practices with particular reference to the Italian context in the year 2018, after the implementation of Legislative Decree No. 254/2016 on the disclosure of non-financial information. This is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) promoted by United Nations in 2015 and specifically with SDG 12 and relative target 12.6 focusing on the adoption of sustainable practices and the integration of sustainability information into reporting on the behalf of companies. We analyzed a sample of 60 companies listed on the Italian Stock Exchange. Our results suggest that there is a slight negative relationship between sustainability engagement and earnings management practices. Indeed, our evidence shows that companies characterized by higher level of sustainability engagement are less prone to advance EM practices. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first research to investigate the effect of the sustainability engagement on EM practices with reference to a sample of Italian listed companies.