Big Bath Accounting och bonus i börsnoterade företag
A company may use different accounting techniques to adjust accounting information and thereby attract investors. Big Bath Accounting is defined as a strategy used to make changes in the financial statements and reduce the results further when the companies expect negative results. This phenomenon has been observed empirically and occurs when including CEO change and negative results. The aim of this study is to test whether there is another factor affecting Big Bath Accounting, namely remuneration of the CEO. The CEOs should, by changing the accounting information, be able to influence their compensation. Big Bath Accounting is defined as a strategy used in companies to increase their discretionary accruals (which consists of provisions, depreciation and amortization). A total of 195 annual reports have been studied (in each of the 39 companies five annual reports have been studied). The variables have been operationalized and analyzed by a regression analysis. The result of this study shows that the hypothesis stating that there is a positive correlation between the remuneration of the CEO and Big Bath Accounting can be rejected. The survey also shows that some industries show stronger tendencies of Big Bath Accounting and that some specific industries exhibit greater relation between the remuneration of the CEO and discretionary accruals. The conclusion is however that we cannot prove a positive relation between Big Bath Accounting and remuneration to the CEO.