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Family-controlled firms play an important role in the global business activities. Although there were abundant researches examining the issue on earnings management, little is known about earnings management in family-controlled firms. This research intends to explore the relationship between the family - controlled firms and earnings management. Furthermore, this research also investigates the extent to which board independence and seasoned equity offering limits earnings management. Therefore, we add moderating variables, the proportion of independent directors, duality of chairman and CEO, and seasoned equity offerings, to discuss the moderating effect between family-controlled firms and earnings management. We used 2,482 samples of listed technology corporate from 2006-2012, and employed a hierarchical regression analysis as our methodology. The empirical results show that family-controlled firms are positively related to earnings management. However, effective corporate governance can be exercised to reduce the level of earnings management in family-controlled firms by a high proportion of independent directors in the Board and prevention of duality of Chairman and CEO. In addition, we also find that seasoned equity offering, as expected, has a positive relation with earnings management although it is not significant. The research results suggest that an independent Board can effectively suppress family-controlled firms carry out earnings management behaviors.
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