지배주주의 지분구조와 실제이익조정- 소유권과 소유지배괴리도를 중심으로 - (Controlling Shareholders’ Ownership Structure and Real Earnings Management)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국회계학회
· 수록지 정보 : 회계학연구 / 37권 / 1호 / 157 ~ 189페이지
· 저자명 : 이아영, 전성빈, 김성혜

초록

우리나라 기업들의 경우 실제 소유지분을 나타내는 지배주주의 소유권과 의사결정에 영향을 미치는 지배권과는 괴리가 있는 것으로 잘 알려져 있다. 본 연구에 의하면 우리나라 대규모기업집단에 속한 기업들의 경우, 지배주주의 평균 소유권은 19.2%에 불과하나 평균 지배권은 무려 68.47%에 달해 실질적으로 기업을 통제하는 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 결과는 지배주주가 소액주주의 부나 기업가치의 극대화보다는 지배주주 자신의 사적 효익을 추구하는 과정에서 실제활동을 통해 이익을 상향조정한다는 이익침해가설을 지지하는 결과이다.
본 연구에서는 특히 소유권을 통제한 후 소유지배괴리도와 이익조정과의 관계를 살펴보았다. 실증분석 결과 실제활동을 이용한 이익조정은 소유권과 지배권의 괴리가 증가할수록 심화되는 것으로 나타났으며 이러한 관계는 지배주주의 소유권이 낮은 경우에만 발견되었다. 즉, 지배주주의 소유권이 낮아 지배주주가 부담하는 위험이 거의 없는 상황에서 지배주주의 지배력에 상응하는 소유지배괴리도가 커질 때 지배주주의 사적이익을 도모하기 위한 기회주의적인 유인이 심화될 수 있음을 보여준다. 하지만 지배주주의 소유권이 높은 경우 지배주주의 소유지배괴리도와 실제이익조정간에 유의한 관계를 발견할 수 없었다. 본 연구의 주요 결과는 실제이익조정 측정을 위한 대안적 모형을 이용하거나, 재량적 발생액을 통제한 후에도 강건한 것으로 나타났다.

영어초록

Using the sample of Korean firms that belong to the large business group, this study investigates whether the ownership structure of the controlling shareholders affects the extent of real earnings management. We focus on the cash flow rights and the wedge measured by the difference between the voting rights and cash flow rights to capture the ownership structure of the controlling shareholders. In Korea, the corporate ownership is highly concentrated and characterized by a large wedge between control (voting rights) and ownership (cash flow rights) of controlling shareholders. The concentrated ownership could affect the real earnings management in one of two competing ways: the entrenchment effect and the alignment effect. The entrenchment effect is based on the argument that the entrenched controlling owner may opportunistically deprive minority shareholders of their rights. The effects of entrenchment by the controlling shareholders include outright expropriation, i.e., the controlling shareholder benefits from self-dealing transactions in which profits are transferred to other companies he/she controls(Fan and Wong 2002). As a result, the controlling shareholder has both the incentive and the opportunity to manipulate accounting earnings for private rents. On the other hand, the alignment effect implies that the high ownership concentration can serve as a credible commitment that the controlling owner is willing to build a reputation for not expropriating minority shareholders (Gomes 2000). The commitment is credible because minority shareholders know that if the controlling owner extracts private benefits when he/she holds a substantial amount of shares, they will discount the stock price accordingly, and the majority owner’s share value will be reduced (Fan and Wong 2002). Thus, the alignment effect predicts that the controlling shareholder is not associated with the earnings management.
In addition to the concentrated ownership, the divergence between voting and cash flow rights is that the controlling owner becomes entrenched with high level of control, while the low equity ownership level provides only a low degree of alignment between the controlling owner and minority shareholders. A controlling owner in this situation could extract wealth from the firm, receive the entire benefit, but only bear a fraction of the cost. So the wedge creates incentives for controlling shareholders to divert firm resources for their private benefit at the expense of minority shareholders (Fang and wong 2002). Previous research using Korean data finds that as the control-ownership wedge becomes larger, controlling shareholders tend to manage reported earnings more aggressively to hide their self-serving behavior (Kim and Yi 2006).
Most previous studies have used the discretionary accruals to estimate the opportunistic earnings management. Our study differs from the prior studies in that it uses the real activities manipulation as the proxy of the earnings managements. Roychowdhury (2006) defines the real activities manipulation as departures from normal operational practices, motivated by managers’ desire to mislead at least some stakeholders into believing certain financial reporting goals have been met in the normal course of operations. Thus, the controlling shareholders as either by being owner manager or controlling managers could engage in these activities more extensively to pursue their own interests at the expense of minority shareholders. Despite the costs associated with real activities manipulation, the controlling shareholders are unlikely to rely solely on accrual manipulation to manage earnings. Even though real activities manipulation potentially imposes greater long-term costs on the company, the controlling shareholders have greater willingness to manipulate earnings through real activities rather than accruals. Because the controlling shareholders are easily exposed to the social or political circumstances and thus are more likely to be the social or political target, the accrual manipulation is more likely to draw auditor or regulatory scrutiny than real decisions.
In this paper, we use the sample of Korean firms that belong to large business groups over the period 2000-2007 and we could collect the data of the ownership structure of the controlling shareholders through Online Provision of Enterprises Information System (OPNI) of the Fair Trade Commission. Our major findings are as follows. First, the regression results show that the cash flow right is positively related to the income-increasing earnings management through real activity management. This finding supports the expropriation of minority shareholder's hypothesis, suggesting that the controlling shareholders might use their control powers to maximize their own private benefit that are not shared by minority shareholders. Second, we find that as control-ownership disparity (wedge) becomes larger, the controlling shareholders tend to engage more in opportunistic earnings management through real earnings management when we use the cash flow right as a control variable. Finally, the significant relationship between real earnings management and wedge is observed only when cash flow right is relatively low. Our evidences suggest that it is important to consider the level of cash flow right when we examine the effect of wedge between control and ownership of controlling shareholders.

참고자료

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