會計師知識移轉及傳染效應之價值攸關性

本文旨在探討查核會計師若有較佳之審計品質，是否會將該查核知識移轉至其他受查公司；抑或會計師之較差之審計品質會有傳染效應，以致影響受查企業之價值攸關性高低。本文也進一步探討審計產業專家與會計師任期之影響。本研究以2000年至2018年之台灣上市櫃公司為研究對象，實證結果發現，會計師知識移轉會有顯著較高之價值攸關性；反之，較差審計品質之傳染效應會有顯著較低之價值攸關性。再者，相較於產業專家會計師，非產業專家會計師在知識移轉下會有增額顯著較高之價值攸關性；在傳染效應下會有增額顯著較低之價值攸關性，顯示投資人對非產業專家會計師之查核品質會有增額之影響判斷，亦即若非產專會計師能提供更好之審計品質，則更會給予較佳之價值攸關性，但反之，若其審計品質較差，也同樣會給予增額之負向反應。當會計師查核任期短且具傳染效應時，會有顯著較低之價值攸關性。然而，不論任期長短，對於產業專家會計師皆無顯著價值攸關性影響，顯示投資人對於產業專家之判斷，非因查核任期而產生改變。就作者所知，本文為首篇同時探討會計師知識移轉及傳染效應影響之文獻，透過本文實證結果，希冀提供給未來相關研究更細微之思考方向。

關鍵字

價值攸關性；知識移轉傳染效應；會計師任期；審計產業專家

並列摘要

Abstract: The objective of this study was to explore whether audit partners with better audit quality transfer their auditing knowledge to other audited companies and whether poorer audit quality has a contagion effect that affects the value relevance of other audited companies. The impact of auditor industry specialization and auditor tenure were also investigated. Companies publicly traded in Taiwan from 2000 to 2018 were examined. The empirical results indicated that knowledge transfer among audit partners resulted in significantly higher value relevance and that the contagion effects of poorer audit quality significantly reduced value relevance. Furthermore, knowledge transfer among audit partners without industry specialization produced significantly higher value relevance than that among audit partners with industry specialization, whereas the contagion effect resulted in significantly lower value relevance, which means that the audit quality of audit partners without industry specialization had a significantly greater impact on investors. In other words, if audit partners without industry specialization can provide better auditor quality, then they will offer even greater value relevance. However, if they provide poorer audit quality, then they will also display significantly more negative responses. Short auditor tenures with a contagion effect lead to significantly lower value relevance. However, auditor industry specialization did not have a significant impact on value relevance regardless of auditor tenure, which means that how investors determine industry specialization does not change with auditor tenure. As far as the author knows, this study is the first to examine the impacts of both knowledge transfer and contagion effects at the same time. It is hoped that the empirical results of this study offer more detailed reference for future research.