摘要 自1998年下半年起,國內相繼發生多起上市、上櫃公司之財務危機,包括:瑞聯集團、東隆五金、國產汽車等,此不僅使投資大眾蒙受嚴重損失,甚至對整個經濟社會造成負面的影響。Gilson (1989)發現,當公司的盈餘持續下滑,財務發生危機之際,公司管理人員可能有遭撤職之命運。而Murphy & Zimmerman(1993)也指出經營績效不佳之CEO會藉由膨脹盈餘的方式,防止董事會撤銷其職位。故本研究欲探討處於不同財務危機階段之企業,管理當局是否皆會進行盈餘管理,以及所採用之工具。 本研究自1997年至2000年上市(櫃)公司篩選出本研究所定義之三階段財務危機公司:營收衰退30﹪以上或連續兩年虧損,股票股利減少且現金股利未能發放、債務到期違約未付,聲請重整或破產,來驗證: 一、 是否處於不同財務危機階段之企業,管理當局皆會從事盈餘管理? 二、 在各種財務危機階段中,管理當局是否會因所面臨情況或需求之不同,偏好不同的盈餘管理工具? 本研究發現,危機三階段公司在財務危機發生前後,管理人員皆會進行盈餘管理,藉以虛增盈餘,亦即危機嚴重程度,並不影響公司管理者進行盈餘管理之意願。而管理者所偏好採用之盈餘管理工具,則包含:裁決性應計項目、裁決性R&D支出、裁決性廣告支出、裁決性處分長期資產利得、關係人銷貨、薪資水準增加率。但裁決性廣告支出及裁決性處分長期資產利得對破產倒閉公司的效果,並不如前兩階段危機公司顯著。
Abstract During the second half of 1998, there are a lot of financial crunch in the public-listed companies. The financial crunch not only makes the investors’ assets serious damage, but also causes the negative effects in the social environment. Gilson(1989)found that if the earnings drops continuously, the managers will have the fate to be fired. Murphy and Zimmerman(1993) also pointed that the CEO having poor performance will use the way of expanding earnings to avoid the directorate to withdrew his job. We want to discovery whether does the manager manipulate earnings when he is in the financially distressed firm. We choose those financially distressed firms, such as that drops 30% earnings, has negative earnings in two years, reduces to issue the stock dividends and cash dividends, doesn’t pay the expiration debt, apply to restructure or bankruptcy in order to prove: 1. Does the manager use to manipulate earning if they are in the different degree of financially distressed firms? 2. In the different degree of financially distressed firms, does the manager prefer diverse tools of manipulate earning? This research found that the manager manipulates earning in order to raise the earnings before or after the financial crunch happens. The manager prefers to use the tools of manipulating earnings including discretionary accruals, discretionary R D expenditure, discretionary advertising expenditure, discretionary long-term assets gain, related-party transactions and the raising rate of remuneration. But we found that the discretionary advertising expenditure and discretionary long-term assets gain do not obviously related to the bankrupt firms.