Does Earnings Quality Affect Companies' Performance? New Evidence from the Jordanian Market

This study aims to investigate the importance of earnings quality as a determinant of companies' performance. It provides some empirical evidences from an emerging market, specifically from the Jordanian market. This study developed an econometric model for the effect of earnings quality on the companies' performance using empirical evidence. The study employs a panel data analysis method by using a sample of all Jordanian industrial public shareholding companies listed on Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) during 2010-2018. The results reveal that Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), and Earnings Per Share (EPS) as proxies of company's performance are affected by the earnings quality. This provides the importance of positive earnings quality that eventually influences the companies' performance. The results of this study suggest that the higher control level on the managers' behavior and its outcome will have an effect on earnings quality, and thus the company's performance increases. As well as, high relevance of accounting inforniation will improve earnings quality, and thus earnings quality with the interaction factors of the company's environment work on improving performance. As a conclusion, this study can work as a reference to assist standard setters, security analysts, regulators and other accounting-information users in appraising relation between the earnings quality and companies' performance.