...Ahmed Gooda; Chi Guotai; Ahmed Hassanein Purpose This study delves into investigating how corporate real earnings management (REM) activities shape credit ratings (CR). Likewise, it explores how the robustness of internal controls (IC) moderates the relationship between REM and corporate CR...

...) management and examine whether and how income smoothing through R&D management affects credit rating agencies’ perception of firm risk. Design/methodology/approach The authors use financial statement data from the CRSP/Compustat Merged data set universe for the period from 1992 to 2019 after...