1. Types of earnings management

- Acquisition and restructuring provisions
- Conservative and aggressive accruals
- Stretching materiality
- Premature revenue recognition

2. "Fixing" earnings management

- Financial reporting standards
- Accounting education on ethics
- The role of the internal and external auditor
- The regulation of auditors

3. Fraud vs Earnings management

Fraud differs from earnings management only in that fraud is an outright lie while earnings management is a mere shading of the truth, but both are used to obtain some advantage by influencing the judgments of financial statement readers

4. Earnings Management

Earnings management occurs when managers use judgment in financial reporting and in structuring transaction to alter financial reports to either mislead some stakeholders about underlying economic performance of the company or to depend on reported accounting numbers