مقايسه سود و جريانات نقدي به عنوان معيارهايي براي ارزيابي عملكرد شركت: بررسي نقش اقلام تعهدي

The Comparison of Earnings and Cash Flows as Measures for Firm Performance: The Role of Accruals

A large number of financial information users are using the earnings for measuring firm performance. Another measurement tool for this purpose is net cash received. When the cash flows statement was not mandatory for preparation, earnings was the only performance measurement criteria, but after that the cash was the next one. However, there are many people who are adapting earnings for their evaluation purposes yet. This paper investigates the ability of both earnings and cash flows to measure firm performance. For this purpose, we investigate the data for 82 listed firms in Tehran Stock Exchange the period 1379- 1386. The results show that in the shorter the performance measurement interval the earnings has stronger relation to the firm performance (stock return). Besides, when the firmʹs operating cycle is getting longer, the relation between firm performance (stock return) and cash flows is getting stronger. On the other hand, accruals play an important role to reflect firm performance. However, if the absolute amount of accruals is large, the relation between earnings and stock return will be weaker than the relation between cash flows and stock return.