Overconfidence, managerial accounting competence and dividend smoothing: evidence from emerging markets

Purpose The purpose of this research is to review the dividend smoothing effectiveness from the perspective of managers' overconfidence and accounting competence. Accounting competence is considered as an important factor in recognizing management’s ability to override internal controls as an opportunity to distort financial reports. Design/methodology/approach The current study applies multivariable linear regression method estimator to investigate the relationship between Overconfidence, Managerial Accounting Competence and Dividend Smoothing of 1,320 firm-year observations in Iran for the period of 2012–2022. Findings The result show that manager overconfidence leads to dividend smoothing. Moreover, this relation is stronger in low information quality and not driven by high information quality or by others measures. This research show that accounting competence has led to positive change in the efficiency of the manager performance and reduce the self-interesting motives of manager. Practical implications In the present study, the weaknesses caused by the ambiguity of capital market efficiency in market performance-based statistical models are compensated and partially covered by classifying the relationships and implementing models in each group. Results obtained from this study will aid market practitioners to evaluate the firms’ dividend smoothing. The results provide evidence and information for policymakers and investors about the theoretical gap and the factors affecting to it. It also informs policymakers to the dividend smoothing associated with the manager characteristics. Originality/value The previous researches emphasize on limiting agency costs by creating limits for the optimistic actions of managers, while framing and standardizing a major part of management behaviors is not possible. In this research, the manager’s executive ability has been examined in the form of accounting competence at the same time as excessive self-confidence, in order to control part of the inherent limitations caused by the managers' behavior. This study also considers the positive aspect of managers' ability in the form of accounting competence.