公司治理特性與財務報告重編之關連性研究

Abstract

本研究之目的為探討內、外部公司治理制度對於財務報告重編之影響，探討之項目主要有：董事會特性、董事席次控制權及盈餘分配權之偏離程度、以及外部審計人員之特性。觀察是否公司治理制度較完善之公司，財務報告品質較佳、重編之機率較低。 本研究取92-96年間因管理當局財報編製確有錯誤而導致重編之公司為觀察值，並加以控制產業、規模及期間，配對一未重編公司，比較兩組之公司治理特質是否有顯著差異。綜合敘述性統計以及Logistic迴歸分析之結果，本研究歸納之結論如下： 一、 對公司產業環境及經營狀況較熟悉、並積極參與公司運作之董事，較能有效監督公司財報狀況，可降低日後需要重編的可能性。然而具有財務會計背景及外部董事占董事會席次總數之比例高低則對財務報告重編無顯著影響。 二、 董事席次控制權及盈餘分配權之偏離程度並不會直接導致財務報告重編；而是在公司經營情況不佳時，偏離程度大的公司為管理階層提供一個較易於操縱財務報告之環境與機會，導致日後財報重編的機率提升。 三、 會計師任期之長短、以及是否依據92年上市上櫃公司財務報告審閱程序修正而輪調會計師，與財務報告重編之發生可能性皆無顯著關聯。然敘述性統計分析時發現，輪調之新任會計師辨認出過去已發出財報內誤述之能力較高。 因此本研究結果之意涵為，若加強董事會之職能及責任，應能提升財務報告之品質。而輪調會計師對事前預防財務報告重編之效果有限，且此舉將額外增加企業及會計師事務所之查核成本，因此是否有必要將此輪調制度做一強制規範仍有待更進一步的研究。

The purpose of this study is to observe the impact of corporate governance characteristics on financial report restatements and explore if more competent corporate governance will lower the occurrence of restatements. The research sample consists of the listed companies which had restated their financial reports because of ‘actual misstatements’ between 2003 and 2007, and matching listed companies which had not restated financial reports but in the same industry and with similar size to their counter parts in the same time period. The Logistic regression is used to test this research’s hypotheses. The empirical results find that the tenure and the active level of the board directors exhibit significant and negative association with the likelihood of restatements. However, the boards with financial and accounting expertise and their independent level have no strong effect on restatements. Besides, this study finds that the deviation between the board seats control and the cash-flow rights will not lead to restatements. Nevertheless, when the company confronts operating loss, the deviation will provide an incentive to misstate the financial reports. Finally, the CPA’s tenure and rotation have no significant association with restatements. The findings imply that enhancing the board’s responsibility and facility will improve the financial reports’ quality. Moreover, CPA’s tenure and rotation have no clear relation with restatements. For this reason, whether mandatory rotation is necessary should be studied more carefully.