International Journal of

ADVANCED AND APPLIED SCIENCES

EISSN: 2313-3724, Print ISSN: 2313-626X

Frequency: 12

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 Volume 12, Issue 8 (August 2025), Pages: 246-254

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 Original Research Paper

The moderating role of internationalization in the relationship between family ownership and earnings quality: Empirical evidence from Thailand

 Author(s): 

 Kingkan Moonmuang 1, Kusuma Dampitakse 1, *, Sungworn Ngudgrato 2

 Affiliation(s):

  1Faculty of Business Administration, Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi, Pathum Thani, Thailand
  2School of Educational Studies, Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, Nonthaburi, Thailand

 Full text

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 * Corresponding Author. 

   Corresponding author's ORCID profile:  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3662-9831

 Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2025.08.023

 Abstract

This study investigates how internationalization influences the relationship between family ownership and earnings quality. The analysis is based on 537 firm-year observations from 179 companies listed in Thailand, covering the Agricultural and Food, Consumer Products, Industrials, and Technology sectors during 2017–2019. The study employs firm-fixed-effects panel regression models with cluster-robust standard errors. Earnings quality is measured by the absolute value of discretionary accruals, while internationalization is captured by the foreign-sales-to-total-sales ratio (FSTS). The main findings indicate that family ownership alone does not have a significant impact on earnings quality. However, a higher level of foreign sales is weakly associated with increased abnormal accruals. Importantly, the results show that when foreign sales exceed about 25% of total revenue, family ownership is linked to lower discretionary accruals, suggesting improved earnings quality. Additionally, the advantages of strong governance practices appear to grow as foreign sales increase. This research adds to the literature on corporate governance and international business by showing that the influence of family ownership on financial reporting depends on the firm's international exposure. In practice, investors may perceive internationally active family firms as having lower reporting risk, while regulators may need to focus more on domestic family-owned firms.

 © 2025 The Authors. Published by IASE.

 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

 Keywords

 Family ownership, Earnings quality, Foreign sales, Discretionary accruals, Corporate governance

 Article history

 Received 7 March 2025, Received in revised form 1 July 2025, Accepted 2 August 2025

 Acknowledgment

No Acknowledgment. 

 Compliance with ethical standards

 Conflict of interest: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

 Citation:

 Moonmuang K, Dampitakse K, and Ngudgrato S (2025). The moderating role of internationalization in the relationship between family ownership and earnings quality: Empirical evidence from Thailand. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 12(8): 246-254

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 Figures

  Fig. 1

 Tables

  Table 1  Table 2  Table 3  Table 4  Table 5 

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