Top management team characteristics, corporate environmental sustainability, and earnings management strategy: An empirical investigation

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Abstract

The proposed study would focus on the relationship between the characteristics of top management teams (TMTs) and the environmental sustainability of companies and their relationship with earnings management (EsM). The primary aim of this study is to reveal how these characteristics have a direct impact on the way business companies handle their profits. The relationship between controlling earnings, saving the environment, and the characteristics of TMTs was examined by using ordinary least squares (OLS). The information used in this study was that of the public companies between 2015 and 2021. The two-stage least squares (2SLS) approach was also employed in this study to ensure that the findings were correct. These findings indicated that EsM and TMT size had a statistically significant positive relationship. However, the negative correlation between TMT and the accounting and financial skills of EsM was statistically significant. Another weak negative correlation discovered in the course of the study was that of environmental protection and business management. Another significant finding of the study was that there is a significant relationship between the performance of top management and EsM. Stages of regression (2SLS) were also employed to ensure that the findings were correct. The key results of the former research are verified by the 2SLS data.

Keywords: Characteristics of Top Management Team, Corporate Environmental Sustainability, Earnings Management, Saudi Arabia

Authors’ individual contribution: Conceptualization — E.M.A.-M., N.H.A.A., and H.T.; Data Curation — N.H.A.A.; Resources — H.M.M.; Writing — Original Draft — E.M.A.-M.; Writing — Review & Editing — Z.T.A.A. and I.A.E.E.; Visualization — H.M.M.

Declaration of conflicting interests: The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

JEL Classification: G34, L31, Q56

Received: 02.09.2025
Revised: 04.12.2025; 07.01.2026
Accepted: 05.02.2026
Published online: 10.02.2026

How to cite this paper: Al-Matari, E. M., Turki, H., Alnor, N. H. A., Eltahir, I. A. E., Ali, Z. T. A., & Misbah, H. M. (2026). Top management team characteristics, corporate environmental sustainability, and earnings management strategy: An empirical investigation. Corporate and Business Strategy Review, 7(1), 271–283. https://doi.org/10.22495/cbsrv7i1art24