台灣上市櫃公司員工分紅與盈餘管理之關聯性

Abstract

台灣上市櫃公司貫以發放員工分紅做為吸引優秀人才的方法，其中更以電子產業甚。但以會計盈餘做為獎酬基礎，容易使經理人為增加自身財富而進行盈餘管理。本研究欲探討經理人對員工分紅比率之預期，是否會造成對經理人盈餘管理行為的影響，以及經理人因員工分紅產生的盈餘管理程度，是否會因產業性質不同而產生差異。 本研究以2004年台灣上市櫃公司為分析對象，以前三年度平均員工分紅比率，做為經理人對員工分紅比率預期之變數，分別以Modified Jones Model的裁決性應計項目(DA)、Teoh et al.(1998)提出之流動裁決性應計項目(DCA)及Ashbaugh et al.(2003)使用之投資組合績效調整後流動裁決性應計項目(PADCA)與ROA估計流動裁決性應計項目(REDCA)取絕對值後四項指標，做為偵測盈餘管理的代理變數，分析員工分紅比率對經理人進行盈餘管理行為之影響。研究結果發現，以全部樣本而言，四項盈餘管理指標與員工分紅比率間均呈無相關，可能係因不同產業間盈餘管理動機、方向及盈餘方式之差異互相抵銷所致。而在電子產業，四項盈餘管理指標與員工分紅比率間呈顯著正相關，顯示我國電子業經理人確實會因自利動機，欲極大化自身財富，而進行正向盈餘管理。在非電子產業，四項盈餘管理指標與員工分紅比率間呈無相關，顯示我國非電子業可能因員工分紅比率不高，對經理人進行盈餘管理的動機不夠強烈；亦可能非電子產業的經理人因其他因素之考量，例如稅賦等，而從事不同方向的盈餘管理；亦可能為非電子產業中，因樣本量不足，產業區分不夠精細，致產生不同產業間盈餘管理差異相互抵銷之情形。

This paper examines two research issues. The first one is the link between manager’s expectancy of the rate of employee bonus and earnings management; the second one is the difference of intensity of earnings management from manager’s expectancy of the rate of employee bonus between the electronics industry and non- electronics industry. The rate of employee bonus is defined as the proportion of employee bonus to retained earnings. Using data obtained from Taiwan Economics Journal (TEJ) and Market Observation Posting System (MOPS) for the period 2002-2004. We consider four specifications of discretionary accruals as a proxy for earnings management that includes the absolute value of DAit (Discretionary Accruals) from Modified Jones Model (1995), the absolute value of DCAit (Discretionary Current Accruals) from Teoh et al.(1998) and the absolute value of PADCAit (Portfolio Performance Adjusted Discretionary Current Accruals) and REDCAit (ROA in Estimation Discretionary Current Accruals) from Ashbaugh et al.(2003). We provide the average rate of employee bonus from previous three years as a proxy for manager’s expectancy of the rate of employee bonus to examine the association between manager’s expectancy of the rate of employee bonus and the four measures of earnings management. The empirical results show that there is no significant alliance between the average rate of employee bonus and earnings management in four measures in all samples. However, after we split all sample into two sub-samples, the electronics industry and non- electronics industry, and conduct the same analyses, we found that the average rate of employee bonus is positively and significantly associated with earnings management in four measures in the electronics industry, but it has no significant association with earnings management in four measures in the non- electronics industry.