審計委員會會計專家多寡與盈餘管理之關聯性研究

The Relation between the Number of Accounting Experts on the Audit Committee and Earnings Management

王怡方(Yi-Fang Wang)

指導教授 ： 陳耀宗

國立臺灣大學/管理學院/會計學研究所/碩士(2012年)

https://doi.org/10.6342/NTU.2012.00250

摘要

審計委員會為董事會之功能性委員會中，主要為公司監督財務報表品質之重要機制之一，美國沙賓法案通過後，審計委員會之財務專家更受到矚目，也被期許能夠為審計委員會提升其監督之效能，台灣之證券交易法亦於2006年完成修訂，明定公開上市發行公司必須於審計委員會中聘任至少一名之財務或會計專家，自2007年修訂法正式實施起，陸續有公司在審計委員會中設立兩位以上之會計專家，公司企圖以增加會計專家之人數來提升審計委員會之監督效果，但在提高會計專家席次的同時，代表其他背景之專家人數的減少，因此本文將透過探討會計專家人數的多寡與盈餘管理之關聯性，來分析會計專家是否能夠真實有效強化公司治理之機制。

本文對於審計委員會中財務與會計專家之定義參考DeFond et al. (2005)，盈餘管理分別就Ball and Shivakumar (2006)研究中對應計項目盈餘管理之變數衡量，與Roychowdhury (2006)之研究中對於實質盈餘管理之變數衡量方法，作為本文探討盈餘管理活動之主要代理變數，依照公開資訊觀測站所彙整依證交法第14-4設立審計委員會之公司作為研究樣本，以台灣經濟新報所取得之資料庫數據做為資料來源。

實證結果發現，於審計委員會中設置兩位以上會計專家之公司，在抑制裁決性應計項目盈餘管理之面向上，結果不如僅設置一位會計專家之公司；在實質盈餘管理之面向上，審計委員會中僅設置一位會計專家之公司其抑制盈餘管理之效果亦較兩位以上會計專家之公司佳，但可看出兩位以上會計專家之公司，對於實質盈餘管理仍有相當程度之抑制效果。

關鍵字

審計委員會 ； 盈餘管理 ； 會計專家

並列摘要

Audit committee is one of the most important mechanism among all the functional committees of board of directors to supervise the quality of financial statement. After Sarbanes-Oxley Act had been enacted in the United States, the financial experts on audit committee had gained more attentions and also expected to enhance the efficiency of the control function within the audit committee. In 2006, The Securities and Exchange Law was enacted to require at least one financial or accounting expert on the audit committee for all the listed companies. In 2007, several companies have hired more than one accounting experts on the audit committee. This signifies that these companies were attempting to enhance the efficiency of the control function by adding more accounting experts; however, the additional accounting experts was causing a decrease of experts in other fields. This thesis examines the relation between the number of accounting experts in the audit committee and earnings management.

This thesis uses the definitions of financial and accouting experts as in Defond et al. (2005), the accrual earnings management variable measurements as in Ball and Shivakumar (2006) and the real earings management variable measurements as in Roychowdhury (2006). The samples is selected from the companies included on Market Observation Post System. The other financial data were selected from the Taiwan Economic Journal. The empirical results demonstrate that firms having more than one accounting experts on the audit committee constrains less accrual earnings management as compared with firms having only one accounting expert. In addition, firms with only one accounting expert have better performance in constraining real earnings management. However, firms with more than one accounting experts in an audit committee still have some effects on constraining real earnings management.

並列關鍵字

Audit Committee ； Earnings Management ； Accounting Experts

參考文獻

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