Corporate Board Attributes And Conditional Accounting Conservatism: Evidence From French Firms

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between corporate board of directors’ attributes and conditional accounting conservatism in the French context. Using a pooled regression model over the period 2009-2012, our empirical results can be summarized as follows. First, greater board activity encourages more conservative reporting in financial statements. Second, larger board size diminishes conditional accounting conservatism. Lastly, there is a positive association between gender diversity and accounting conservatism. As a robustness test, we use alternative measures of accounting conservatism, namely time series and accrual-based measures in addition to asymmetric timeliness of earnings. Our findings suggest that boards of directors’ attributes are an important factor in determining the financial reporting quality of French firms.