員工分紅會計處理與權益價值攸關性探討

Abstract

近期，國內外學者對於員工分紅和董監酬勞應不應該費用化的議題討論得沸沸揚揚，大部分的學者認為應該要費用化，理由之ㄧ是員工分紅的本質其實就同薪資酬勞一般，所以應該被當成費用看待。但我國礙於法令的規定–商業會計法第六十四條:「商業對業主分配之盈餘，不得作為費用或損失」，員工分紅於財務報表的表達是當作盈餘之分配而不是費用。此舉不僅讓財報嚴重失真，也讓我國在商場上無法與國際接軌，另外也可能會誤導投資人對於企業的真實價值作出錯誤的判斷。 員工分紅使員工成為公司的股東，因此若將員工分紅股當作是盈餘分配的話，那投資者是無法從財務報表中看到原有普通股權益受到侵蝕的部份，股價也就不會被正確反應。本研究因此透過Ohlson的剩餘所得模型架構，分析和比較每股盈餘在員工分紅作為盈餘分配、以面額認列為費用、以市價認列為費用之三種不同會計方法處理下所呈現的數字與股價間的攸關性程度。最後實證結果顯示，平均來說，將員工分紅以市價認列為費用與權益價值間是較具有攸關性的。 由於員工分紅同時具有激勵和稀釋的效果，因此本研究在迴歸模型裡加入了具有成長性的因素 (例如:營業收入成長率)，以釐清激勵的作用，進而能彰顯出稀釋的效果。另外，本研究亦依時間將樣本區分為三個區塊：1999-2001、2002-2005、 1999-2005，以檢視投資人對於揭露擬制員工分紅費用化資訊前和後的反應。

It has recently been a hotly debated issue that whether employee compensation, which includes both stock-based and cash-based dividends, should be treated as an expense under income statement. Majority of studies have inclined that employee compensation should be expensed. Their reason includes that the essence of employee compensation is similar to employee’s salary. But due to R.O.C.’s business accounting regulation that earnings to shareholders can not be treated as expense or loss, employee compensation in financial reporting is presented as retained earnings and not recorded under income statement as expense. This way, the financial report will tend to lose its integrity and investors are prone to make false investment decisions. The distribution of stock-based compensation makes employee become shareholders of the company. The employees then are entitled to the cash dividend passed out by the company during the operating period. This will essentially dilute existing shareholders’ equity value. Therefore, treating employee compensation as earnings distribution will not reveal the true dilution effect on the existing shares’ value, consequently, the stock price will not be accurately reflected on the market. We apply the residual income valuation framework to analyze and compare the different equity values under distinct accounting methods: treating employee compensation as earnings distribution, treating employee compensation as expense with face value, and treating employee compensation as expense with market value. The regression results turn out that in general expensing employee compensation has more relevant relationship with stock price than that of treating employee compensation as earnings distribution. Due to the fact that employee compensation comprises of two opposite effects- dilution and encouragement simultaneously, we add in the growth effect (ex. sales growth rate) to make clear the dilution effect. Moreover, we divide the data by time into three sections: 1999-2001, 2002-2005, 1999-2005, to see if the disclosure of the pro forma information of expensing employee compensation will affect investors’ decision making.