지배회사 특성과 감사인의 전략적 반응 (Do Auditors Strategically Respond to the Characteristics of Parent Company?)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국회계학회
· 수록지 정보 : 회계학연구 / 39권 / 5호 / 327 ~ 368페이지
· 저자명 : 최연식, 김범준, 이문영

초록

본 연구는 감사인에게 상반된 인센티브를 제공하는 지배회사의 독특한 특성에 주목하여 감사인이 감사보수를 전략적으로 활용하는지를 분석하였다. 실증분석 결과, 타감사인이 감사한 종속회사의 비중이 클수록 감사보수가 상대적으로 낮고, 대규모기업집단 내에서 결합재무제표를 작성하는 최상위지배회사 이거나 종속회사를 지배하는 지배력이 높은 회사일수록 상대적으로 감사보수가 높은 것을 발견하였다. 특히 결합재무제표를 작성하는 회사의 경우, 타감사인이 감사하는 종속회사의 비중과 감사보수 사이의 음(-)의 관계는 더욱 강화되는 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구의 결과는 감사인이 기업집단 내에서 최상위에 위치한 상징적 고객을 감사위험 요소로 평가하는 반면, 잠재적 고객(즉 타감사인이 감사하는 종속회사)을 많이 보유한 지배회사는 경제적 요인으로 평가한다는 점에서 감사인이 지배회사의 특성에 전략적으로 행동한다는 시사점을 제공한다.

영어초록

Prior studies argue that auditors are willing to cut prices as a response to competition in the audit industry. It is alleged that auditors lower fees (i.e., ‘loss-leader’) in the hope of getting a foot in the door to secure lucrative non-audit services (Antle et al. 2006). Auditors also tend to reduce fees on initial audit engagements (i.e., ‘low balling’) expecting to recover any initial loss by raising fees in the future (Sankaraguruswamy and Whisenant 2005). However, auditors’ strategic discounting does not necessarily ensure high yields in the future.
We examine auditors’ strategic decision-making in pricing fees. Specifically, we look into auditors’ charges to parent companies for consolidated financial statements because parent companies have distinguishable characteristics from stand-alone firms or subsidiaries. From an economic view, a parent company leads several subsidiaries that, in turn, will hopefully switch their auditors to their parent’s auditor, although audit on complex consolidation processes is burdensome with inefficient communication between auditors. In addition, from a political perspective, parent companies serve as a symbol of each business conglomerate while drawing social attention from media, regulators, etc. The auditing of such a symbolic client can help build good reputations (i.e., signaling effect). Alternatively, the symbolism of parent companies can cause auditors to bear political costs such as increased efforts to justify their opinion under high attention and scrutiny (Redmayne et al. 2010).
In this paper, we investigate three key problems. First, we address whether, and (if so) how, auditors with audit engagements with parent companies would adjust audit fees by responding to the relative weight of subsidiaries audited by other auditors. In other words, auditors are likely to discount fees if they expect any initial loss on parent companies to be cancelled out by future profits from auditor switching by subsidiaries. However, auditors would adjust fees upward if they anticipated higher audit risk arising from inefficient communication and knowledge spillover between auditors (Choi et al. 2009; Shon et al. 2009; Rho and Bae 2013). Next, we analyse whether, and (if so), auditors reflect the symbolism of parent companies in audit prices. If auditors put an emphasis on the signaling effect, they would offer discounted prices to symbolic clients. Yet, if auditors plan to gather additional audit evidence and spend more efforts to justify their opinion in the face of increased social attention or scrutiny, auditors would increase fees. Lastly, we test the compounding effect on audit fees of both subsidiaries audited by other auditors and the symbolism of parent companies.
To test the impact of subsidiaries audited by other auditors on fees, we calculate the proportion of assets (sales) of subsidiaries audited by other auditors to total assets (sales) of a consolidated entity. To analyze the effect of parent companies’ symbolism on audit fees, we measure (1) the centrality of a parent company within the control structures of a conglomerate, following Almeida et al. (2011), and (2) whether a parent company reports combined financial statements under the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act.
The sample consists of parent companies that report consolidated financial statements and are publicly traded on Korean stock markets from 2000 to 2010. Firms in the banking and finance industries are excluded. Data on auditors of parent companies and their subsidiaries are collected from the DART. Information on combined financial statements and business conglomerates is from the website of the Financial Supervisory Services and the Fair Trade Commission. The final sample is 3,215 firm-year observations.
Our empirical results are summarized as follows. First, we find that audit fees charged to parent companies are negatively associated with the proportion of assets (sales) of subsidiaries audited by other auditors. This result supports that auditors offer discounted prices to parent companies considering their subsidiaries as potential clients, rather than audit risk-increasing factors arising from co-work with other auditors. Second, we show that audit fees are positively associated with parent companies’ symbolism, implying that auditors charge higher fees to symbolic clients due to political costs and increased audit work to justify their opinion. Finally, we find that the negative association between audit fees and subsidiaries’ assets (sales) size is stronger in firms that report combined financial statements than in other parent firms. This finding suggests that auditors’ strategic discount is greater for ultimate parents for the purpose of wining over top-ranking clients.
Taken together, we provide evidence that auditors strategically adjust fees; auditors offer discounts due to potential benefits but demand higher fees to cover possible costs. This paper contributes to the literature by enhancing understanding of auditors’ strategic decision-making and showing that the control mechanism of conglomerates is factored into audit pricing. Recently, the use of the IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) and the ISA (International Standard on Auditing) gives rise to several issues about audits of consolidated financial statements. We hope the findings of this paper provide valuable implications to firms, regulators, and other interested parties.

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