Abstract: There are many literatures on the behavior of actual controllers in enterprises, but few studies take the impact of the special situation on the corporate earnings management into consideration, i.e., the actual controller does not formally serve as an executive in the company but in fact staying behind the curtain to control the company. Based on the data of China's A-share private listed companies, this paper studies the impact of the actual controller not serving as a senior executive on the earnings management. The findings show that the actual controller not serving as a senior executive has a significantly positive impact on the real earnings management level, while no impact has been found on accrued earnings management. The result of the acting channel test shows that the actual controller will improve the company's real earnings management level through increasing cash dividends, taking up the funds of the company, and increasing the on-the-job consumption of the senior executives. Further research finds out that the positive impact of the actual controller not serving as the senior executive in the company on the real earnings management level is more significant in the private enterprises with lower legal management or in the private enterprises with lower media attention and lower equity incentive level. Therefore, the regulatory agencies should continuously improve the clauses concerning the rights and obligations of the actual controllers in The Company Law, and strengthen the supervision on the actual controller and the intensity of punishment on the illegal behaviors of the actual controller. The stakeholders should also take the initiative to identify and supervise the behaviors of the actual controllers who are behind the scenes.

Key words: actual controller, tunneling, senior executives of private enterprises, reputation, earnings management