Taiwan amended the Securities Exchange Law in January 2006 to standardize
the system of independent directors and audit committees, hoping to use the
establishment of independent directors and audit committees to enhance the
professional capabilities of the board of directors to strengthen the operation of the
corporate governance system. In the past, most research literatures discussed the
impact of board characteristics, audit quality, and company performance on earnings
management. This paper examines the relationship between meeting frequency of
board of directors, audit committee and earnings management of Taiwan-listed
companies. The absolute value of discretionary accrual is used as a proxy variable
for the measurement of earnings management. The empirical results show that the
meeting frequency of the audit committee and earnings management are
significantly negatively correlated, indicating that the number of meetings of the
audit committee can effectively reduce earnings management.