Purpose: This study investigates the prevalence of accrual-based and real-based earnings management activities prior seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) for a sample of Canadian public firms between 1993 and 2008. This study also examines earnings management trends around reforms in the Canadian corporate governance regime brought by Canadian SOX (CSOX) Act. Design/methodology/approach: Both parametric (t-test) and non-parametric (Wilcoxon test) tests are used to examine the statistical significance of mean and median accrual and real-based manipulation in the year preceding the announcement of a ...