This paper has two objectives. The first is to investigate whether the provision of MFRS 136 (that is equivalent to IAS 36) allows for an earnings management technique termed “big bath” in Bursa Malaysia and, whether the change in firms’ CEOs plays a role in goodwill impairment loss recognition. The second objective is to examine the application of goodwill impairment loss recognition under the provision of MFRS136 in Bursa Malaysia between 2011–2012, using a “Mann-Whitney U” test. Our findings suggest that companies utilize goodwill impairment to take a “bath” regarding earnings management. Moreover, we find that Malaysian companies struggle to understand the ambiguity of the Value in Use (VIU) method under the MFRS 136 as they tend to take extreme accounting treatment strategies. Finally, we find that the new CEOs in Malaysian companies are more conservative in accounting treatment than CEOs with long tenure.

The development of audit practice is a continuous process. The strategic system audit (SSA) method is a quite recent audit procedure that represents a complete shift from old audit techniques as it relies on assessing the client's business risk using a top-down rather than a bottom-up (traditional) approach. Previous studies focused on the effectiveness of SSA in performing audit. In addition, previous studies did not rule out the role of auditors' experience in an experimental procedure that compares between the two methods. Moreover, the effect of time pressure on auditors' "JDM" effectiveness under Traditional Audit (TA) and SSA during the orientation phase is still lacking in the literature. Using expert auditors as a benchmark and 81 master degree students, a2x2 factorial design experiment and a Mann-Whitney U test show that auditors under SSA method issue a more effective audit assessment than under TA in the absence or presence of time pressure.