This study investigates the impact of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on the Trade-Off between real activities manipulation and accrual-based earnings management to achieve targeted profits. The study is using the data of non-financial Saudi companies during the period from 2003 to 2020.The study found that Saudi companies use both methods in a substitution manner, as the mandatory adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) led to a decline in reliance on accrual-based earnings management, in exchange for an increase in reliance on real activities manipulation. Some characteristics of corporate governance also helped in improving substantially the effect of adopting the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on the substitution effect between real activities manipulation and accrualbased earnings management .The results of this study contribute to providing a clearer vision for legislators, regulators, policy makers, investors, lenders and financial analysts about the decision of mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on the financial reports quality and focus on some of the unintended effects of this decision .

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The study aimed to measure the impact of the managerial ability of the executives on the quality of accounting disclosure, using data of non-financial Saudi companies during the period from 2008 to 2018. Managerial ability was measured using the model of Demerjian et al. (2012) which employs data envelope analysis (DEA) method. The accounting disclosure contains three pillars are the financial reporting quality (measured by accruals quality), the timeliness (measured by the audit report lag and delayed filing with the Capital Market Authority of Saudi Arabia [CMA]), and the company information environment (measured by trading volume and information asymmetry).The study found that there is a similarity between the mean of managerial ability of executives in Saudi companies and the previous studies. With managerial ability of executives had a positive and significant relation with the accruals quality and trading volume, negative and significant with audit report lag and delayed filing with the Capital Market Authority of Saudi Arabia [CMA]), while it was positive and insignificant with no information asymmetry. This means that the managerial ability has contributed to improve the financial reporting quality and timeliness, but it has not contributed to the same extent in improving the information environment. The study recommended that to pay attention to developing the managerial ability of executives in Saudi companies to improve aspects of accounting disclosure.The results of this study contribute to providing a clearer insight on how the managerial ability affects the various aspects of Saudi companies' disclosure in light of the divergent opinions about the extent of the influence of specific characteristics of managers on the company's business results. These results also contribute to improving many of the applications that serve boards of directors, investors and policy makers.