以往研究多著墨於會計師事務所任期或是事務所規模對盈餘品質的影響,尚無研究探討會計師年齡對審計品質的影響,因Feather (1977)研究發現年齡較大的較保守,因此,本研究擬從會計師年齡的保守性探討會計師年齡、會計師任期,以及事務所規模對受查公司盈餘管理的影響,並進一步檢驗會計師年齡與會計師任期及與會計師事務所之交互作用對盈餘管理程度的影響。實證結果發現當會計師年齡愈大,受查公司之盈餘管理程度愈低;而且,在其他情況不變下,會計師年齡與會計師任期之交互作用,對受查公司之盈餘管理程度有負的影響,但會計師年齡與四大會計師事務所之交互作用,對受查公司之盈餘管理程度沒有影響。本研究結果補充說明過去研究忽略會計師年齡、以及年齡與任期交互作用效果對盈餘管理影響的不足之處,此為本研究之貢獻。
Prior researches focus on the effect of auditor’s tenure or the firms of auditors scale on earnings management. Feather (1977) concluded that the elder men/women are more conservative than the younger men/women through his research. This study aims to explore whether the auditors’ age affect the behavior of client’s earnings management, and examines the relationships among the auditors’ age, auditors’ tenure and earnings management. I use absolute discretionary accruals to measure the degree of earnings management. The empirical results show that the firms with elder auditor’s attestation have lower discretionary accruals than the firms with younger auditor’s attestation, meanwhile, the tenure of auditor’s firm is longer, the discretionary accruals of firms is lower. Moreover, these two variables interaction has negative effect on earnings management. Is the interaction between auditors’ age and tenure variables of the CPA, for the tenure with earning management being investigated would negative effect would be with negative affection, but the age of the CPA and the BIG4’s accounting firms, there are no impact for the companies with earning management being investigated. However, the interaction about auditors’ age and size does not have impact on earnings management. The contribution of this study emphasizes the auditors’ age and tenure are one of the critical variables to affect earnings management decisions.