公司危機程度與審計公費及盈餘管理之關係

Abstract

本研究旨在探討公司危機程度與審計公費及盈餘管理之關係，此危機程度係指新聞危機程度，為財經新聞中有關該公司之負面訊息計算而得。本研究以2015年及2016年的財經新聞及各種財務資料作為樣本，採用銘傳大學與時報資訊及聯合線上共同研發之新聞量化指標網中，各公司財經新聞的危機發生指標作為公司危機程度的代理變數。 研究結果顯示，公司的危機程度越高，會計師收取的審計公費亦越高，但危機程度與盈餘管理並不具顯著相關性。然而，將審計公費加入模型後，結果證實事務所收取較高的審計公費時，對於公司因危機程度高而進行之應計盈餘管理有抑減效果，在實質盈餘管理方面則有增強效果。此結果不僅支持本研究提出之假說，亦與過去關於兩種盈餘管理方式之研究結論一致。 綜上所述，依本研究之實證結果，財經新聞不僅是向大眾傳播訊息的媒介，亦會牽動事務所收取審計公費之多寡以及公司從事盈餘管理之程度。

This thesis examines the relationships among corporate crisis intensity, audit fees, and earnings management. Corporate crisis intensity in this study means the negative information delivered by news. Our sample is based on financial news and other kinds of financial information in 2015 and 2016. We use Intensity of Default-Corpus(ITDC)as the proxy variable of corporate crisis intensity, which is extracted from the website of News Quantified Index developed by Ming Chuan University, Chinatimes, and Udn. The regression results show that the corporate crisis intensity is positively associated with audit fees charged by the audit firms. However, there is no significant relationship between corporate crisis intensity and the degree of earnings management. After considering the influence of audit fee and add it into the regression model, we find that when the audit firms charge higher audit fees, it can lower the degree of accrual-based earnings management caused by high corporate crisis intensity. By contrast, higher audit fees may enhance the degree of real earnings management caused by high corporate crisis intensity. The result not only supports our hypothesis, but also is consistent with previous research about these two kinds of earnings management. In conclusion, this study proved that financial news is more than a tool to deliver message, it may also influence audit fees and the degree of earnings management.