The aim of this study is to conduct a comprehensive literature review on the impact of audit committees' independence, meeting frequency, and financial expertise on earnings management (both accrual and real). This review will act as a guide for upcoming empirical research. Many countries, when drafting corporate governance legislation, have focused on improving the characteristics of audit committees to deter unethical behaviour by management. Jordan is among the countries that have included provisions in the Corporate Governance Code for listed service and industrial sector companies that emphasise the characteristics of audit committees and their directors. The provisions were implemented in 2009 and revised in 2017. The current study suggests that researchers should choose a study sample from the years 2014 to 2019 to achieve different goals. First, leaving out years after corporate governance started in 2009 lets us check claims that the quality of corporate governance mechanisms improves over time. This is because the years proposed to be left out (2009–2013) are long enough for listed companies to get used to corporate governance. Second, a comparison can be conducted on the quality of corporate governance mechanisms before and after recent reforms. Empirical studies are likely to provide feedback to both legislators and regulators as to whether governance mechanisms are working as intended.
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