Purpose: The purpose of our study is, throughout the use of a quantitative method, to explore how similarities between the CEO and CFO affect earnings management. Throughout using a quantitative method.

Theoretical and Empirical Method: The research strategy used in this study is a quantitative method, and our hypotheses have been deducted based on established economical and psychological theories. The data was collected through reviewing annual reports, which we later based our regression analyzes on. These regression analyzes tell if there are significant bonds between the demographic variables and earnings management. The audited organizations are listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm within the healthcare sector. The healthcare sector was chosen since two of our earnings management dimensions were based on investments within research and development (R&D). Additionally, it was chosen since it is characterized by being R&D-intense.

Theoretical Approach: The established theories, which the thesis is based upon is agency theory, the behavioral theory of the firm, upper echelons theory and similarity-attraction theory. They are economical and psychological theories who all study individuals behavioral and decision-making progresses.

Conclusions: We couldn’t find any significant connections when we tested all organizations and years. However, when we categorized the companies into Large, Mid and Small Cap significance was found. Significance was also found while testing one company at the time. The demographical similarities between CEO and CFO that were shown to have the greatest impact on earnings management were gender, generation, education and functional track. In other words we were not able to prove a connection between demographical similarities and earnings management when overlooking all companies. However, we did find that different demographical similarities affect susceptibility to varying degrees.