審計委員會召集人特性對財務報表時效性之影響—以臺灣公司為例

Abstract

本研究以我國2016年至2020年已設置審計委員會之上市(櫃)公司為樣本，探討審計委員會召集人特性對財務報表時效性之影響。本文以審計報告時間落差及總時間落差衡量財務報表時效性，並聚焦在審計委員會召集人擔任公司其他功能性委員會席次多寡、在公司總任期及具會計專業背景。實證結果顯示，審計委員會召集人擔任公司其他功能性委員席次越多及在公司總任期越長時，能縮短審計報告時間落差，而審計委員會召集人具會計專業背景時，將使審計報告時間落差拉長。本研究亦探討審計委員會召集人不具會計專業背景，但審計委員會其他成員具會計專業背景情況對時效性之影響，而實證結果顯示在該情況下將使審計報告時間落差縮短。在總時間落差中，實證結果顯示審計委員會召集人擔任公司其他功能性委員席次越多及在公司總任期越長時，能縮短總時間落差。但審計委員會召集人具會計專業背景及審計委員會召集人不具會計專業背景，但審計委員會其他成員具會計專業背景情況，皆與總時效落差沒有顯著關聯。 本研究進一步分析新冠疫情期間及新冠疫情前，審計委員會召集人特性對財務報表時效性影響之變化。實證結果顯示相較於新冠疫情前，新冠疫情期間審計委員會召集人擔任公司其他功能性委員會席次越多及在公司總任期越長時，能更加縮短審計時間落差及總時間落差。本研究亦將超過法令規定期限始公告財務報表之公司刪除以進行敏感性分析，迴歸結果顯示部分公司之特殊情況並不影響主要迴歸結果。

The study relies on listed companies that have established audit committees from 2016 to 2020 in Taiwan and examines the effect of timeliness of financial reports and audit committee chair. This article takes audit report lag and total lag as the standard to measure timeliness of the financial report and focuses on three audit committee chair characteristics which are the number of seats in other committees, tenure, and accounting expertise. This research results show that the number of seats in other committees and tenure can significantly decrease audit report lag. However, when audit committee chair is accounting expertise, audit report lag will significantly increase. Moreover, when the audit committee chair is not accounting expertise and another audit committee member is accounting expertise, audit report lag will significantly decrease. For the total report lag as the standard to measure timeliness of financial report. The research results show that the number of seats in other committees and tenure can significantly decrease total report lag. However, when audit committee chair is accounting expertise has no significant effect on total report lag. When audit committee chair is not accounting expertise and another audit committee member is accounting expertise has also no significant effect on total report lag. I further focus on the different impact of audit committee chair characteristics on the timeliness of financial reports during and before the COVID-19. These research results show that compared with the period before COVID-19, the number of seats in other committees and tenure can shorten the audit report lag and the total lag during the COVID-19. For robustness tests, I deleted those companies which released their financial reports after the deadline. Robustness tests provide the same empirical results as the main tests.