Abstract: The current accounting standards stipulate that the changes in fair value recognised in profits or losses of the financial assets available for sale should be written into the statement of assets and liabilities or the profit statement respectively when the companies are holding or disposing it, making it a borrowed natural instrument for the listed companies to be engaged in earnings management behavior. Taking China’s A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2007 to 2010 as the research objects, this study conducts a deep analysis of the earnings management motivation of the listed companies in disposing the financial assets available for sale and the constraining function of various corporate governance mechanisms on the earnings management motivations. The results of the study indicate that: (1) the listed companies will make use of the disposal of financial assets available for sale to turn loss into profit in their current profit-lossing year; and if they cannot turn loss into profit in their current profit-lossing year, the listed companies will delay the disposal until the future year when required, then they will be engaged in the great purge of earnings management behavior of disposing the financial assets available for sale; (2) different corporate governance mechanisms of the listed companies can play different constraining role in various earnings management behaviors during the disposal of financial assets available for sale, the stock proportion of the major stockholders can play a significant constraining role in the behaviors of turning loss into profit and the great purge of earnings management during the disposal of financial assets available for sale by the listed companies; but other corporate governance mechanisms cannot achieve the desired effect in constraining the behaviors of turning loss into profit and taking a great purge of earnings management by the listed companies.

Key words: corporate governance mechanisms; earnings management; financial assets available for sale