---
title: "Earnings management research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “earnings management” appeared in 897 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in finance (455), accounting (289) and management (96)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/earnings-management
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/earnings-management.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “earnings management” appeared in 897 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in finance (455), accounting (289) and management (96). (as of 2026-11-05)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-05T06:02:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “earnings management”

[Browse research topics](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/directory/page/2.md)

Research on “earnings management” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “earnings management” appeared in 897 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in finance (455), accounting (289) and management (96).
- 126 of them were published in 2025, against 73 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (14), Capital University of Economics and Business (10) and Xiamen University (10).
- The journals publishing most of them were Finance research letters (77), International Review of Economics & Finance (31) and International Review of Financial Analysis (29).
- The most-cited of them is “Beyond gender diversity: How specific attributes of female directors affect earnings management” (The British Accounting Review, 2017), with 481 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 24 | 27 | 34 | 38 | 34 | 49 | 53 | 71 | 76 | 49 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 35 | 25 | 23 | 29 | 31 | 34 | 33 | 28 | 27 | 24 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 12 | 16 | 12 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 12 | 9 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 2 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 11 | 6 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 73 | 69 | 73 | 81 | 79 | 97 | 97 | 113 | 126 | 89 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Finance research letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/finance-research-letters.md) | 77 |
| 2 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 31 |
| 3 | [International Review of Financial Analysis](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-financial-analysis.md) | 29 |
| 4 | [Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/review-of-quantitative-finance-and-accounting.md) | 26 |
| 5 | [Journal of Accounting and Public Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-accounting-and-public-policy.md) | 18 |
| 6 | [The British Accounting Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/the-british-accounting-review.md) | 18 |
| 7 | [Research in International Business and Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/research-in-international-business-and-finance.md) | 16 |
| 8 | [Journal of International Accounting Auditing and Taxation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-international-accounting-auditing-and-taxation.md) | 16 |
| 9 | [International Journal of Disclosure and Governance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-disclosure-and-governance.md) | 15 |
| 10 | [Emerging Markets Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/emerging-markets-review.md) | 12 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Zhongnan University of Economics and Law](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhongnan-university-of-economics-and-law.md) | 14 |
| 2 | [Capital University of Economics and Business](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/capital-university-of-economics-and-business.md) | 10 |
| 3 | [Xiamen University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xiamen-university.md) | 10 |
| 4 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 8 |
| 5 | [Renmin University of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/renmin-university-of-china.md) | 8 |
| 6 | [Central University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/central-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 7 |
| 7 | [Southwestern University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/southwestern-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 7 |
| 8 | [Dongbei University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/dongbei-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 6 |
| 9 | [Jinan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/jinan-university.md) | 6 |
| 10 | [Shanghai University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/shanghai-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 6 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 189 |
| 2 | United States | 93 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 48 |
| 4 | Australia | 28 |
| 5 | India | 23 |
| 6 | South Korea | 21 |
| 7 | Hong Kong | 19 |
| 8 | Italy | 12 |
| 9 | Vietnam | 12 |
| 10 | Canada | 11 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [corporate governance](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/corporate-governance.md) | 92 |
| 2 | real earnings management | 68 |
| 3 | [Chinese listed companies](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-listed-companies.md) | 67 |
| 4 | accrual-based earnings management | 62 |
| 5 | [financial reporting quality](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/financial-reporting-quality.md) | 44 |
| 6 | [information asymmetry](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/information-asymmetry.md) | 37 |
| 7 | discretionary accruals | 30 |
| 8 | earnings quality | 28 |
| 9 | [financial constraints](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/financial-constraints.md) | 25 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 481 | 4.4 | [Beyond gender diversity: How specific attributes of female directors affect earnings management](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2017.09.001) | [The British Accounting Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/the-british-accounting-review.md) | 2017-09-08 | Ammar Ali Gull, Mehdi Nekhili, Haithem Nagati et al. |
| 2 | 376 | 3.3 | [The monitoring role of female directors over accounting quality](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2017.05.016) | [Journal of Corporate Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-corporate-finance.md) | 2017-05-31 | Juan Manuel García Lara, Beatriz García Osma, Araceli Mora Enguídanos et al. |
| 3 | 348 | 3.2 | [Audit committee financial expertise, gender, and earnings management: Does gender of the financial expert matter?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irfa.2017.11.002) | [International Review of Financial Analysis](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-financial-analysis.md) | 2017-11-29 | Alaa Mansour Zalata, Venancio Tauringana, Ishmael Tingbani |
| 4 | 271 | 3.5 | [Financial distress, internal control, and earnings management: Evidence from China](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcae.2020.100210) | [Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-contemporary-accounting-economics.md) | 2020-05-29 | Yuanhui Li, Li Xiao, Erwei Xiang et al. |
| 5 | 269 | 2.4 | [Has goodwill accounting gone bad?](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11142-017-9401-7) | [Review of Accounting Studies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/review-of-accounting-studies.md) | 2017-05-06 | Kevin K. Li, Richard G. Sloan |

## Research ideas that follow this keyword

- [Detecting earnings management beyond accrual models](https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/detecting-earnings-management-beyond-accruals.md)

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “earnings management”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/earnings-management

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-earnings-management,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “earnings management”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/earnings-management}},
  urldate = {2026-11-05},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).