269 © 2018 AESS Publications. All Rights Reserved. EARNINGS QUALITY WITH REPUTATION AND PERFORMANCE Quang Linh Huynh 1 1 Vice Dean for the School of Economics and Law, TraVinh University TraVinh City, Vietnam ABSTRACT Article History Received: 29 September 2017 Revised: 25 January 2018 Accepted: 29 January 2018 Published: 2 February 2018 Keywords Earnings quality Corporate reputation Corporate performance Quantile regression Best Vietnamese 50 firms Mediating mechanism. JEL Classification: C51, G39, L25, M41. The quality of earnings is a potential driver of profit growth. However, it is regarded as a consequence of corporate reputation. Earnings quality is also suggested as a mediator intervening in the association between corporate reputation and corporate performance. This research employs the quantile regression to investigate the linkage between earnings quality and corporate performance. Then, it uses an indirect technique to analyze the mediating effect of earnings quality on the relationship between corporate reputation and corporate performance. The results provide statistical evidence on the comprehensive relationships among earnings quality, corporate reputation and corporate performance. The relationship between earnings quality and corporate performance is statistically supported in a more overall picture at different levels of corporate performance. Furthermore, this research offers statistical evidence on the mediating role of earnings quality in the impact of corporate reputation on corporate performance. The findings are expected to provide business managers with an insight into the complex links among earnings quality, corporate reputation and corporate performance, which will facilitate their decisions on the delivery level of good financial reports as well as on the maintenance of their corporate reputation to the extent that their company can obtain superior improved performance. Contribution/ Originality: This study contributes to the existing literature by providing statistical evidence on the mediating role of earnings quality in the effect of corporate reputation on corporate performance and it is the first to use the quantile regression to investigate the different effects of earnings quality on corporate performance. 1. RESEARCH BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Several financial scandals, such as the major scandals of Enron and WorldCom, direct the attention of investors, researchers and also those concerned to the quality of financial information as well as the quality of reported earnings. Studies have begun to investigate the factors related to earnings quality released by publicly listed companies. Earnings quality is reported by previous researchers as being greatly essential to financial information users, practitioners and regulators as well as accounting researchers, because the earnings of companies are generally supposed to be an important information component offered in financial statements (Lev, 1989; Boonlert-U-Thai et al., 2006). If earnings quality is too low, users of financial statements can suffer negative effects, since poor earnings quality may enable investors to misallocate their money; therefore, they can obtain improper Asian Economic and Financial Review ISSN(e): 2222-6737 ISSN(p): 2305-2147 DOI: 10.18488/journal.aefr.2018.82.269.278 Vol. 8, No. 2, 269-278 © 2018 AESS Publications. All Rights Reserved. URL: www.aessweb.com