Do Nonprofit Organisations Manage Earnings? An Empirical Study

Earnings management by nonprofit organisations is not very frequently studied in the academic literature. The present paper
presents an overview of the existing literature, and derives a number of hypotheses as to nonprofit organisations’ inclination
to manipulate earnings. In a sample of 844 financial statements (2007) of Belgian nonprofit organisations accounting manipulations
of earnings towards zero are clearly present. Furthermore, the potential presence of agency conflicts between board and management
induces these manipulations, as well as the presence of debt. Finally, larger organisations seem to be more inclined to manipulate
earnings to reach earnings levels close(r) to zero.