Earnings management and manipulation are one of the most fundamental research topics in accounting and finance. Earnings management is caused by information asymmetry between the company's management and shareholders (or potential investors) and disrupts the true and fair view, i.e., the main goal of accounting. Therefore, it is crucial to understand this area, especially in today's rapidly changing environment and corporate structures, where the motivations and ways of manipulation are changing. This raises the question of how the changing environment and management's goals have affected the approach to earnings management and what impact this has on shareholders.

The change in the structure of assets affects the behavior and goals of management who perform earnings management. Based on previous research, the former theory diverges from current practice when the reason is a company's asset structure changes. The main change is companies' emphasis on intangible assets or research and development (R&D). It is a precise understanding of how and why earnings management is currently carried out that will help to protect shareholders and reduce information asymmetry, also called the agent-principal or stewardship problem.

The research will focus on identifying possible motivation and testing it through the latest approaches of using econometric accrual models detecting earnings management and other methods.

Publikace