Digitalization, Governance, and Earnings Management
A special issue of Journal of Risk and Financial Management (ISSN 1911-8074). This special issue belongs to the section "Business and Entrepreneurship".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2026 | Viewed by 159
Special Issue Editors
Interests: earnings management; value relevance; efficiency
Interests: financial accounting; banking
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Digital transformation is rapidly reshaping the financial reporting landscape. Firms increasingly rely on automated accounting systems, AI-assisted auditing tools, and real-time disclosure platforms. Despite these technological advances, earnings management persists and, in some contexts, may even intensify alongside digitalization. This raises a central question for accounting research and corporate governance: does digital transformation constrain opportunistic reporting behavior, or does it merely shift reporting practices into new and less visible forms?
This Special Issue invites empirical and theoretical contributions that examine how digitalization interacts with corporate governance and reporting quality. We particularly welcome studies that investigate how digital infrastructure, algorithmic oversight, and emerging technologies influence financial reporting behavior across different industries, ownership structures, and institutional settings.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Digital infrastructure and accrual-based or real earnings management;
- Platform economy revenue recognition and reporting discretion;
- Algorithmic auditing, AI-assisted detection, and reporting displacement;
- Board digital literacy and oversight effectiveness in relation to earnings quality;
- Fintech adoption and loan loss provisioning in banking;
- Cryptocurrency holdings, digital assets, and fair value manipulation;
- IFRS convergence, digital reporting mandates, and regulatory arbitrage;
- Institutional ownership, analyst coverage, and digital complexity in financial reporting;
- Cross-country variation in digital governance effectiveness;
- Real effects of digitalization on audit quality and auditor specialization.
Dr. Wil Martens
Prof. Dr. Justin Y. Jin
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Risk and Financial Management is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- digitalization
- corporate governance
- earnings management
- earnings quality
- financial reporting
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