Title: Internal governance mechanisms and value relevance of accounting earnings: an empirical study in the French context

Authors: Wafa Masmoudi Ayadi; Younes Boujelbène

Addresses: Faculty of Economics and Management of Sfax, Road of Aerodrome Km 4, BP 1088-3018 Sfax, Tunisia ' Faculty of Economics and Management of Sfax, Road of Aerodrome Km 4, BP 1088-3018 Sfax, Tunisia

Abstract: The objective of this study is to analyse the impact of internal governance mechanisms related to the board of directors, the audit committee and the ownership structure on the value relevance of accounting earnings in the French context. Using the method of Panel Corrected Standard Errors in the context of panel data, we find that the CEO duality and the existence of an audit committee have a negative effect on the value relevance of accounting earnings while the ownership concentration and the institutional ownership contribute to increase the value relevance of earnings. Furthermore, the empirical results show that leverage and growth have a positive effect on the value relevance.

Keywords: corporate governance; board of directors; audit committee; ownership structure; value relevance; accounting earnings; internal governance; France; CEO duality; ownership concentration; institutional ownership; leverage; growth.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMFA.2015.067512

International Journal of Managerial and Financial Accounting, 2015 Vol.7 No.1, pp.3 - 25

Received: 14 Sep 2014
Accepted: 21 Jan 2015
Published online: 17 Feb 2015 *

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