감사인 특성이 감사보고오류에 미치는 영향 (The Effects of Audit Characteristics on the Accuracy of Audit Reporting)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국회계학회
· 수록지 정보 : 회계저널 / 25권 / 3호 / 157 ~ 200페이지
· 저자명 : 김정교, 신찬휴

초록

주식이 거래대상으로서의 적격성이 결여되어 상장폐지 되면 주가가 급락하여 투자손실이 발생할 수 있으므로, 투자자는 상장폐지로 인한 투자손실을 회피하기 위해서 상장폐지 가능성을 사전에 면밀하게 검토할 필요가 있다. 피감사기업의 계속기업 존속능력에 대한 중요한 불확실성이 존재하면, 감사인은 감사보고서에 계속기업불확실성을 표명할 수 있다.
계속기업 존속능력에 대한 평가가 틀리면 손실을 입은 투자자는 감사보고오류를 근거로 감사인에게 소송이 제기될 수 있으며, 법리적 다툼은 감사과정에서 감사인이 전문가로서의 정당한 주의를 기울였는가가 관건이 된다. 감사인의 무과실에 대한 입증책임은 감사인에게 귀속되므로 소송으로 인한 비용 발생이나 명성 하락을 방지하기 위해서 감사인은 소송을 회피할 필요가 있다. 이를 위하여 감사인은 감사보고 정확성을 향상시킬 동기를 가진다. 계속기업 존속능력에 대한 평가의 유용성을 강화하기 위해서는 감사보고오류의 발생가능성에 영향을 미치는 특성을 파악할 필요가 있다.
본 연구에서는 첫째, 감사인의 계속기업불확실성 표명 여부와 상장폐지 간의 관계를 검증한다. 둘째, 감사보고오류의 발생에 영향을 미치는 감사인 특성을 검증한다. 분석 결과 첫째, 감사인의 계속기업불확실성 표명 여부와 상장폐지는 유의적인 양(+)의 관계를 가진다. 둘째, Type Ⅰ error와 감사인 규모와는 유의적인 양(+)의 관계, 비정상 감사시간과는 유의적인 음(-)의 관계를 가진다. 셋째, Type Ⅱ error는 비정상 감사보수 간에 유의적인 양(+)의 관계가 나타났다.
본 연구의 공헌점은 다음과 같다. 첫째, 계속기업불확실성 표명 여부가 상장폐지를 예측할 수 있다는 시장의 신념에 대한 실증적 증거를 제시했다. 둘째, 투자자의 감사보고서 신뢰성을 평가에 있어서 보완적 정보로 활용할 수 있는 감사인 특성을 검증하였다. 셋째, 회계감리 대상기업의 선정에 있어 감사보고오류 발생가능성이 높은 기업에 관한 추가적인 정보를 제공한다.

영어초록

The Exchange shall delist the common stocks in case where a company that has listed its common stocks comes under any of delisitng items. If stocks of the company are delisted, stock price will be rapidly decreased and investors are going to get enormous losses. Accordingly, investors have been concerning whether the company that they have invested will be out in the market in the near future.
Auditors have a duty to evaluate management’s assessment of the client’s ability to continue as a going concern and could cast significant doubt on the client’s ability to continue as a going concern when there are material uncertainties. The FSS(Financial Security Services) reports that many delisting companies have a doubt on the ability to continue as a going concern on the audit report prior to delist and suggests that investors have to concern a going concern uncertainty. We examine the relation between the going concern uncertainty and the delisting to confirm a belief that the going concern uncertainty can be a useful information to predict companies to be delisted.
Are there any motives to predict the client’s ability to contines as a going concern from auditors position? They don’t have a duty to predict the ability to continue as going concern in principle. However, they can be sued for errors of audit reporting from investors who had losses by delisitng the company they had audited, and then it is matter whether they had carried out an audit as professionals who had a trust and good faith, not the audit reporting was correct. If they are sued, they can get losses which are lawsuit costs, human resources outflows or reputation demage. Therefore, they want to avoid lawsuits by investors and they have had motives to increase accuracy to evaluate a client’s ability to continue as going concern. If investors know what audit characteristics are related with accuracy of audit reporting, they can reduce investment losses from delisting.
At the first, we examine a relation between the going concern uncertainty and the delisting to confirm that the belief on the market for the going concern uncertainty is rational. Next, we classify audit reporting error as Type Ⅰ error and Type Ⅱ error and examine what characteristics of auditors are related with a probability to occur Type Ⅰ error and Type Ⅱ error.
Results are below. First, there is a positive relation between the going concern uncertainty and the delisted company, and this result can be a clue for a belief on the market that going concern uncertainty is useful information to predict which company will be delisted in the near future. Second, Type Ⅰ error has a positive relation with big 4 auditors and a negative relation with the abnormal audit hours. These results can be interpreted as big 4 auditors are more conservative and the abnormal audit hours can mitigate probability to occur Type Ⅰ error. Third, there is a positive relation between Type Ⅱ error and abnormal audit fees, and this result can be interpreted as auditors who are taken much abnormal audit fees are less conservative.
Contributions of this study are below. First, we confirm a belief on the market that the going concern opinion is useful information to predict companies to be delisted in the near future. Second, we confirm what characteristics of auditors, financial states and stock price are related with audit reporting errors, so these clues can be useful to evaluate a faithfulness of audit reporting to review the client’s ability to continue as going concern business. Third, results of this study give information about the probability of delisting, these can help authorities to decide to choice companies to do the audit review.

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