審計委員會會計專家多寡與實質盈餘管理之關聯性研究

Abstract

董事會為公司重要的治理機制，其所設立之審計委員會主要職能，就是在確保財務報表的品質。從美國安隆案之後，國內外財務報導相關弊案陸續爆發，使得審計委員會組成之專業性備受討論。我國證券交易法參考美國沙氏法案之規定，要求審計委員會成員至少一人應具備會計或財務專長，目的就是希望藉由會計或財務之專業經驗加強審計委員會的運作與功效，並自2007年開始施行。而越來越多的公司在審計委員會中選任兩位或兩位以上之會計專家，代表董事會、管理階層及股東們相信較多數的會計專家更能在審計委員會裡發揮監督的功用。 過去文獻研究發現美國沙氏法案頒布之後，公司管理階層用以操縱盈餘之行為，由以往之應計項目盈餘管理，改為查核上較困難之實質盈餘管理。本研究以2007年至2009年間設置審計委員會之公司為觀察值，參考Roychowdhury（2006）之研究，以異常營運活動現金流量、異常生產成本及異常裁決性費用做為衡量實質盈餘管理程度之指標，並依循DeFond et al.（2005）之分類，將審計委員會成員區分為具有會計背景之會計專家、不具會計背景之財務專家及非財務專家等三類，探究審計委員會會計專家多寡對實質盈餘管理之影響。 實證結果發現，審計委員會設置兩位或兩位以上之會計專家，對於異常營運活動現金流量、異常生產成本及異常裁決性費用均達到顯著的抑制效果；若僅有一位會計專家，對三項實質盈餘管理指標則皆未達顯著水準。因此，研究結果發現當審計委員會會計專家愈多，越能減少公司實質盈餘管理之情形。

Board of directors is the main governance mechanism of a company. The main purpose of audit committee is to ensure the quality of financial statements. After the Enron Corp., several high-profile accounting scandals occurred; the expertise of audit committee has received much attention. The Taiwan Securities and Exchange law requires at least one of the audit committee members to be an accounting or financial expert, which came into effect in 2007, hoping to reinforce the operation efficiency of audit committee by their experience. A growing number of firms are appointing multiple accounting experts to their audit committees. This move implies that boards of directors, managers, and shareholders believe that additional accounting expertise can contribute greater monitoring by the audit committee. Managers have altered their means of earnings management from accruals to real activities since the issuance of Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This study uses companies with established audit committee from 2007 to 2009 as the research observations, and follows the research model developed by Roychowdhury (2006) to capture the level of real earnings management. The measures of audit committee’s financial expertise are based on Defond et al. (2005); audit committee members are classified into three categories: accounting financial experts, non-accounting financial experts, and non-financial experts. This study investigates the relationship between the number of accounting experts on the audit committee and real earnings management. The empirical results indicate that having two or more accounting experts on the audit committee constrain abnormal operating cash flow, abnormal production cost, and abnormal discretionary expenses relative to committees with one accounting expert. The finding suggests that having multiple accounting experts on the audit committee may constrain more real earnings management.