파트너연고 감사인변경과 이익조정의 관련성 (Auditor Changes Following Partner Familiarity and Their Association with Earnings Managements)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국회계학회
· 수록지 정보 : 회계저널 / 22권 / 6호 / 1 ~ 38페이지
· 저자명 : 이재은

초록

Blouin et al.(2007), Vermeer et al.(2008) 등은 감사대상회사가 감사담당 파트너들의 소속회계법인 이동을 따라 자발적으로 감사인을 변경한 것을 “파트너연고 감사인변경(auditor changes following partner familiarity)”이라고 정의하였다. 본 연구는 2005년 3월에 안건회계법인(“안건”) 소속 파트너와 회계사들의 대규모 전문인력이 소속이동 방식을 통하여 한영회계법인(“한영”)과 통합한 과정에서 안건이 감사했던 상당수 기업이 한영으로 감사인을 변경하였는데, 이러한 감사인변경은 위 선행연구에서 정의한 파트너연고 감사인변경 사례로 파악하였다. 위 방법으로 파악한 파트너연고 감사인변경 연구대상 표본은, 2005년에 안건에서 한영 및 타 회계법인으로 감사인을 변경한 기업 86개(결측치 등 제외 후)의 2002년부터 2007년까지 표본으로서, 최종표본은 460 기업․연도이다. 이 중에서 안건에서 한영으로 감사인을 변경한 실험표본(follower)은 333 기업․연도이고, 안건에서 타 감사인으로 변경한 통제표본(non-follower)은 127 기업․연도이다. 이를 기초로 본 연구는 감사인 변경전과 후에 각각 파트너연고 감사인변경이 감사품질 (또는 이익조정) 수준과 어떠한 관련성을 갖는지 실증조사한다.
연구 결과, 파트너연고 감사인변경을 선택한 실험표본 기업의 감사인변경전 재량발생액 측정치는 타 회계법인으로 감사인을 변경한 통제표본 기업보다 더 높은 것으로 나타났다. 이는 감사인 교체비용이 높을수록(공격적으로 이익조정을 할수록) 더 많이 파트너연고를 따른 감사인을 변경하는 경향이 있다고 보고한 선행연구(Blouin et al. 2007)와 일치하는 것이다. 반면에 감사인변경 후 실험표본의 이익조정수준은 통제표본과 비교해서 유의한 차이를 보이지 않았다. 이는 감사품질 논란이 있었던 감사인이 담당했던 감사대상회사의 차년도 신규감사인(회계법인)은 철저한 감사품질관리를 수행함으로써 실험표본 기업과 통제표본 기업 간의 상대적 감사품질 차이가 유의하지 않았음을 나타내며, 이는 구 Arthur Andersen 고객회사들이 감사인 변경 후 신규감사인의 차년도 감사에서 엄격한 감사를 받았다는 선행연구(Cahan and Zhang 2006; Nagy 2005)와 관련이 있다.
위 조사결과는 파트너연고 감사인변경이 (감사인변경전) 높은 감사인교체비용과 관련이 있음을 실증확인하는 것이며, 동시에 감사인의 독립성 훼손위험(유착위협)에 대한 이론적인 우려에도 불구하고 파트너연고 감사인변경 후 신규감사인(회계법인)의 상대적인 이익조정에 유의한 차이가 없음을 나타낸다. 특히 이 조사결과는 이익조정이 큰 기업이 파트너연고를 따르는 의사결정을 한 배경에는 감사인교체비용 증가(즉, 상대적으로 더 엄격해진 감사절차)를 회피하고자 하는 유인이 있었을 것이나, 위 실증조사 결과에서는 파트너연고가 유지되더라도 새로운 회계법인 내에서는 상대적 감사품질이 감사인변경 전과 달라질 수 있음을 암시한다는 점에서 실무적 시사점을 갖는다. 본 연구는 국내 경험에서 파트너연고 감사인 변경 사례를 파악하고, 이 경우의 이익조정(감사품질)과 관련성을 실증조사하였으며, 감사품질 관련 연구를 기존의 감사법인 차원에서 파트너 연고 차원으로 한 단계 진전시켰다는 점에서 공헌점이 있다.

영어초록

Prior studies (Blouin et al. 2007; Vermeer et al. 2008 etc.) identified the auditor changes following partner familiarity in the incidents of auditor changes caused by the close of Arthur Andersen (AA). They named the AA clients as the “follower”, who have changed auditors to the same audit firms that the regional audit partners have transferred to; the AA clients other than the follower are the “non-follower”.
I identified similar incidents in Korean audit firms' organizational change history. Following to global accounting firms’ organizational changes – including close of AA– after the accounting scandals such as Enron, Worldcom, etc., many global network accounting firms in Korea also made organizational changes subsequently. For example, Anjin LLC.(Anjin; the former AA member firm) changed its network relationship to Deloitte, a division of Ahnkwon LLC. (Ahnkwon; the former Deloitte member firm) was spun off to new firm of Hana LLC.(Hana), which subsequently merged to Anjin after Anjin became Deloitte member. Meanwhile, In March 2005, Ahnkwon (after spin off of Hana firm) has substantially closed its audit business and the majority of their partners and audit clients have moved to Ernst & Young Hanyoung (Hanyoung) - the E&Y firm in Korea.
Among these Korean audit firm’s organizational changes, I identify the incident that the majority of the former Ahnkwon partners moved to Hanyoung and, simultaneously, large number of the former Ahnkwon clients changed their auditors to Hanyoung. Ahnkwon’s 32 partners (64%) out of 50 partners in 2004 became Hanyoung’s partners in 2005. Moreover, according to New KIS VALUE database, 86 (60%) out of 143 public company audits and 288 (68%) out of 424 private company audits of Ahnkwon in 2004 become Hanyoung’s new audit clients in 2005. In addition, the former Ahnkwon clients consist of 67% of Hanyoung’s 2005 new public and private company audits, respectively.
Auditor changes consist of two procedures: (i) dismissal or resignation, and (ii) new appointment. Audit literature to investigate auditor changes does not usually separate such procedures since they can not be discriminated from the auditor change incidents.(Nichols and Smith 1983; Shu 2000; Landsman et al. 2006). However, similar with AA’s close of audit business, audit clients of the audit firms closing its audit business or liquidated should appoint new auditors; this enable us to investigate auditor change incidents focusing on the second stage only.
Based on these partner transfer and audit client’s audit changes, I see the above incident as the “auditor changes following partner familiarity” as reported by Blouin et al. (2007) and Vermeer et al. (2008). Samples are 86 firms which are the Ahnkwon's 2004 audit clients who have changed auditors in 2005. Test samples are 460 firm- years from 2002 to 2007, consisting of the experimental samples (follower) of 333 firm-years and the control samples (non-follower) of 127 firm-years.
Auditor changes following partner familiarity are likely to associated with earnings management or audit quality. For example, the higher auditor switching costs, the more likely the clients follow partner familiarity. Accordingly, earnings management (audit quality) of the follower clients is likely to higher (lower) than the non-follower clients before the mandatory auditor changes. Also, the audit quality of the followers would be lower than the control samples of the non-follower clients after the auditor change since the partner familiarity would threaten the independence of auditors. However, there is another possibility that the new audit firm would suspiciously see the new client because of Ahnkwon’s bad reputations and takes a harsh quality control monitoring process, which would mitigate the threats against auditor independence. In the case it is estimated that audit quality of the follower clients would not be significantly worse than (or different from) that of the non-follower clients after the auditor change.
I found that the follower client’s discretionary accruals is systematically higher than the non-follower client samples (control samples) before auditor changes. It is consistent with the previous study(Blouin et al. 2007) reporting that auditor switching costs of the partner-familarity followers are higher than non-follower clients. Also, I found that there is no significant difference between discretionary accruals of the follower and the non-follower clients. It is consistent with the findings of Cahan and Zhang(2006) and Nagy(2005) who report that new auditors accepting clients of the former AA subsequent to its audit businss closure take relatively harsh quality control process.
This result indicate that auditor changes following partner familiarity are associated with high switching costs, and, new auditor’s independence in substance are properly maintained. It has practical implications since higher switching clients (i.e. higher accrual client firms) may be likely to have incentives to avoid harsh audits by auditor changes following partner familiarity; however, the above results indicate that such relatively higher discretionary accruals may not be maintained under the new audit firm's quality control system in spite of the continued partner-client familiarity relationship. It has contributions that, (i) in spite of general perceptions of independence threats after the auditor changes following partner familiarity, I empirically find the audit quality are properly monitored by the new audit firms, and (ii) I identify partner familiarity incidents in Korean audit practice experiences and empirically investigate its relations with audit quality.

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