Background: -Researchers have provided evidence that managers mislead stakeholders with organizational façades in the non-financial reports. However, few, if any, studies have studied if the reported information in financial reports is used in the same way.

Purpose: -The purpose of this study is to investigate if managers use earnings management as a façade or organized hypocrisy.

Method: -This study uses panel data analysis to test if managers use discretionary accruals earnings management to report inconsistent earnings in the years adjacent to the IPO. The authors selected 44 companies that performed an IPO between 2009 and 2017.

Conclusion: -Using a sample of 330 firm-year observations, the authors find a negative correlation between the year of the IPO and discretionary accruals earnings management. In contrast to previous research, the discretionary accruals did not offer a significant difference from the average. The findings offer similarities to both the decision, the action and the talk criteria discussed in organizational façade literature.