The Effect of Audit Committees on Earnings Management "Empirical study on Manufacturing listed Companies before the International Financial Crisis"

This Study has two main objectives: The first is making a critical revision of Jordanian laws and regulations concerning audit committees in order to explore to which extent they are applied in fifty industrial listed companies. The second one is to examine the effects of audit committees in reducing earnings management in these companies during (2001-2006). The study concluded that industrial public companies fulfill the requirements of audit committees, also found that audit committee size, financial experience of audit committee members and the number of meetings do not affect in reducing earnings management, while the study found that  the independency of audit committee members has an effect in reducing earnings management, it is also found that the percentage of shares that audit committee members own in the company has significantly effects on increasing earnings management. The study recommends that the Jordanian laws and regulations concerning audit committees must be reevaluated and include deterministic terms and conditions regarding their role in reducing earnings managements, minimizing the ownership of audit committee members of the company shares and supporting independency of audit committee through increasing the number of non executives members.