Managerial share ownership and discretionary accruals in Australia : do independent and executive directors have different incentives?

We examine the relation between managerial share ownership (MSO) and discretionary accruals in Australia. We find a positive relation between MSO and discretionary accruals up to a certain level of MSO followed by a negative relation (inverse U-shaped). We suggest that these unique results are a result of certain Australian institutional features that are markedly different to those in the US and the UK and imply that the ownership-discretionary accruals relation is context specific with the wider corporate governance systems influencing the theorised incentive effects. We also posit that executive directors and independent directors have different ownership-discretionary accruals incentives and report results consistent with this proposition.