Employee share ownership and the nature of earnings management

Using a sample of French listed companies, this article investigates whether employee share ownership (ESO) plays a role on the nature of earnings management (EM). Moreover, we aim to explore the documented ambiguous effects of EM and ESO on information asymmetry. Using an agency theory approach, we first observe that, in general, French companies use EM opportunistically rather than for informative purposes. Then, we find that ESO mitigates EM by 1) reducing the overall EM level and 2) making EM less opportunistic and more beneficial for the company.