ESG報告內容與內部控制缺失關聯：以S&P500為例

Abstract

本研究探討S&P500成份公司在2016到2020年所發布之ESG報告與其內部控制重大缺失的關聯。在第一個階段中，探討公司是否出具ESG報告與內部控制重大缺失的關聯。在第二階段，運用文字探勘技術隱含狄利克雷分布(Latent Dirichlet Allocation, LDA)及Loughran and McDonald (2011)會計與財務金融專用字典，對S&P500成份公司在2016到2020年間所發布的ESG報告進行分析。藉由上述兩個技術對ESG報告進行分類，並依分類結果判斷該年度公司對不同議題的重視程度，最終分析此公司與重大內部控制缺失發生的關聯。相較於過往探討內部控制缺失的文獻多著重於審計委員會的特性而未對公司的其他特性多加探討，在本篇論文將從一個新方法分析公司對ESG議題重視程度對內控缺失的影響。本次的研究結果發現，公司是否出具ESG報告與該公司是否發生重大內控缺失的關係並不顯著。然而當研究進一步利用文字探勘技術隱含式狄利克雷分布來分析並拆解ESG報告的組成特性時，ESG報告中與公司治理相關的特性就與內部控制缺失呈現反向的關係，而這個結論也符合本研究對於公司內部控制的預期。

This paper examines the relationship between ESG reports published by S&P 500 companies and material internal control weakness. In the first stage, we examine the relationship between the publication of ESG reports and material internal control weakness. In the second stage, in order to understand firms' emphasis on different aspects of ESG, we use Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Loughran and McDonald (2011) special dictionaries for accounting and finance to analyze the ESG reports. Then examines the relationship between firms' emphasis on different aspects of ESG and material internal control weakness. The results of this study found that there was no significant relationship between the decision to issue an ESG report and material internal control weakness. However, once firms decide to issue ESG reports, the characteristics related to corporate governance in the reports show an inverse relationship with the internal control weakness. This relation still exists controlling other observable ESG scores, proving that text analysis can provide additional information to the related analyses.