員工紅利與後續公司績效之關聯性

Abstract

員工分紅是國內企業常見的獎酬制度，尤其在高科技產業更是主要的財務激勵制度。國內科技業普遍利用員工分紅制度來激勵員工，乃希望發放大額員工紅利能吸引與留任優秀人才，且可激勵員工士氣，以期能提升公司未來績效。2002年外國投資機構對國內員工分紅制度提出嚴重質疑，因為國內員工紅利並沒有於損益表認列薪酬費用，將造成盈餘虛增與過度發放員工紅利，並損及股東權益。從此之後，員工紅利制度便成為一個熱門議題，本文針對我國員工紅利與後續公司績效之關聯性，提供較為完整之實證分析。 本研究發現員工分紅比率與後續公司績效具有微弱顯著的正關聯性，即產生正向的激勵效果；但調整員工紅利費用化後的後續經營績效，則出現負的關聯性，即員工分紅的稀釋效果大於激勵效果，可能肇因於不佳的公司治理，而產生過度發放員工分紅或過度利潤分享所致。此外，本研究發現，當股票紅利占員工紅利總額比例較高，其後續績效並未較佳。 本研究建議，企業管理當局不應過度發放員工分紅，以免損及股東權益，並可有效提升公司治理。此外，亦可考慮搭配其他有效獎酬制度來激勵員工。本文亦建議，主管機關或會計準則制定機構應盡快修改員工分紅會計處理，將員工紅利依公平價值允以費用化，除可提升財務報表的可靠性與透明度外，並有助於企業訂定合理的員工分紅制度，以增進有效的公司治理。本研究結果可提供政府主管機關、企業管理當局與投資人相關決策參考。

The employee stock bonus plan is a commonly adopted incentive compensation scheme in Taiwan, especially in high-tech companies. The main purposes of granting huge employee bonuses to employees are to attract and retain excellent employees, to motivate them and to improve their working attitude. Furthermore, granting firms expect this incentive scheme will improve their future firm performance. Under the current accounting practice in Taiwan, the employee bonuses are not recognized as compensation cost, which results in an overstatement of the reported earnings and induces excess distribution of employee bonuses. Since 2002, when foreign investors raised concerns about the adverse impact of this accounting treatment for the employee bonuses, it has become a hot topic in the Taiwanese stock market. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between employee bonuses and subsequent firm performance. This study finds that the employee bonuses have a weakly significant and positive incentive effect on subsequent firm performance. However, after adjusting subsequent operating performance by considering the expenses of employee bonuses, the results no longer support the hypothesis that higher bonus ratio will create better subsequent firm performance. This means that the dilution effect of the employee bonuses is greater than its incentive effect and that this is caused by an excess distribution of employee bonuses (or excess profit sharing). In addition, the results do not support the hypothesis that the higher the percentage of the stock bonus the better the subsequent firm performance. The results suggest that managers should not distribute excess employee bonuses in order to improve corporate governance, but may adopt other effective compensation plans to motivate their employees. In addition, this paper suggests that regulatory agencies or accounting standards setting bodies have to amend the current accounting treatment to recognize the expenses of the employee bonuses. This would improve the reliability and transparency of financial reporting, and also help to generate a reasonable employee bonus plan.