總審計調整數對公司財務報表公佈時效性之影響

The Influence of Aggregate Audit Adjustments on the Financial Reports Lag

范宏書(Hung-Shu Fan) ； 陳慶隆(Ching-Lung Chen) ； 李淑華(Shu-Hua Lee) ； 謝永明(Yung-Ming Hsieh)

《輔仁管理評論》 15卷1期 (2008/01) Pp. 73-105

https://doi.org/10.29698/FJMR.200801.0004

摘要

財務報表的時效性一直爲會計專業、會計資訊使用者、主管機關與專業團體視爲一個財務會計資訊的重要特徵(Soltani, 2002)，且廣爲資本市場參與者所討論的議題。公司所揭露之「自結盈餘」在某種程度可視爲公司管理當局盈餘報導的企圖，而會計師查核後審定的盈餘則爲會計師與審計客戶協商妥協之後的產品。將自結盈餘減審定盈餘之差額稱爲總審計調整數。此調整數具有可觀測性與可衡量性的特徵，可避免一般盈餘管理研究中，用預期非裁決性盈餘模式推估裁決性應計數的衡量誤差問題，本研究採用此調整數作爲衡量公司管理當局盈餘報導決策與會計師的盈餘報導決策間互動程度，藉以探討其對財務報表公佈時效性的影響。
實證結果顯示：無論以原始總計調整數、原始總審計調整數的絕對值或原始總審計調整數佔會計師審定後的報導盈餘數絕對值之比率的衡量指標，皆顯著與財務報表公佈時間落差呈顯著的正向關係。由正、負原始總審計調整數次樣本觀察，則發現會計師向下修正盈餘之正原始總審計調整數次樣本的各總審計調整數指標，皆顯著影響公司財務報表的公佈時間落差，而會計師向上調整盈餘之負原始總審計調整數次樣本的各總審計調整數指標的實證結果則皆未達統計顯著水準。本研究並進行若干敏感性測試，發現實證結果並不受其他設定與樣本變動的影響，故本研究結論具備相當的穩固性。

關鍵字

總審計調整數 ； 時間落差 ； 監察人審查報告書日 ； 盈餘管理 ； 自結損益

並列摘要

The timeliness of financial reports is recognized by the accounting profession, the users of accounting information, the regulatory and professional agencies as an important characteristic of financial reporting (Soltani, 2002) and universally debated by capital market participants. This paper adopts aggregate audit adjustment, which is defined as the difference between client's pre-audited preliminary earnings (i.e. self-reported preliminary earnings) and post-audited reporting earnings, to proxy the listed firm's earnings management intentions. This measure enables the present study to capture the interactions between managers' decisions on how to management earnings and auditors' decisions on how to prevent earnings management by requiring adjustment of the client's financial statements. The other benefit of such measure allows us to avoid the difficulty or measurement bias of using ex post audited accounting information to assess the listed firms' earnings management intentions. Following Fan and Chen (2007), this study defines the financial report lag based on supervisor report day.
The empirical results evidence that all aggregate audit adjustment measures are positively associated with the financial report lags. The Empirical findings of these kinds provide support to the conjecture and confirm the view that the interactions between managers' decisions on how to management earnings and auditors' decisions on how to prevent earnings management by requiring adjustment of the client's financial statement have played critical roles in determining the timeliness of financial reports. These results remain robust to the various specification tests.

並列關鍵字

aggregate audit adjustments ； financial reports lag ； supervisor report day ； earnings management ； pre-audited preliminary earnings

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