발생액의 질이 기업소송에 미치는 영향－발생액의 질의 구성요소를 중심으로－ (The Effect of Accruals Quality on Corporate Lawsuits －Focused on the Innate and Discretionary Components of Accruals Quality－)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국세무학회
· 수록지 정보 : 세무와회계저널 / 19권 / 2호 / 165 ~ 208페이지
· 저자명 : 박종일, 최관, 조은혜

초록

본 연구는 발생액의 질과 기업소송 간에 관련성이 있는지를 실증적으로 분석하고, 또한 앞서의관계가 감사인 규모, 신용위험의 고저 및 IFRS 도입 전후에 따라 차별적인지를 알아보았다. 전기발생액의 질이 낮은 기업일수록 피고로 한 소송의 발생가능성과 소송금액은 커질 것으로 예상된다. 분석을 위해 본 연구는 소송 자료를 수작업을 통해 수집하였고, 발생액의 질은 Francis et al.
(2005)에 따라 총발생액의 질과 그 원천인 본질적 발생액의 질과 재량적 발생액의 질로 나누어 측정하였다. 분석기간은 종속변수를 기준으로 2001부터 2013까지이고, 표본은 12월 결산의 유가증권상장기업이다.
실증결과는 첫째, 전기 총발생액의 질 또는 그 구성요소가 낮을수록 당기에 피고로 계류된 기업소송의 발생가능성은 모두 높게 나타났다. 둘째, 전기 총발생액의 질 또는 재량적 발생액의 질이낮을수록 피소된 소송금액은 더 컸다. 하지만 본질적 발생액의 질은 소송금액과 유의한 관계를 보이지 않았다. 이는 본질적 발생액의 질은 정보의 불확실성만을 반영하나, 재량적 발생액의 질은 추가로 경영자의 기회주의적인 재량 역시 포함하므로, 재량적 발생액의 질이 낮을 때 소송금액은 더증가된다는 발견이다. 셋째, 전체표본을 다시 나누어 분석하면 앞서의 관계는 감사인 규모가 크거나, 신용위험이 높거나, 또는 IFRS 도입 이전기간일 때 더 뚜렷한 반응을 보였다.
이를 종합하면, 본 연구는 피소로 기업소송의 발생이나 소송금액은 낮은 발생액의 질과 유의한양(＋)의 관계가 있음을 보여주었다는데 의의가 있다. 또한 경영자의 기회주의적인 재량적 발생액의 질이 낮은 기업일 때 정보위험의 증가로 기업소송과 연루될 가능성이 높음을 보여주었다. 따라서 국내의 경우도 최근 기업소송이 높은 환경에 있으므로, 이러한 발견은 학계뿐 아니라, 실무계, 규제기관 및 정책당국에게 재무보고의 질이 낮을 때 기업소송 및 소송금액과는 어떤 관계가 있는지에 관한 이해에 시사점을 제공한다.

영어초록

This study examines the effect of financial reporting uncertainty that is proxied by accruals quality on a firm’s actual litigation risk. Previous studies define accruals quality as the extent to which accruals map into last－period, current－period, and next－period operating cash flow realizations (Dechow and Dichev, 2002；Francis et al., 2005). The more accruals are to be converted into operating cash flows, the easier to forecast firm’s future cash flows, therefore, decrease information uncertainty. On the contrary, the lower the accrual quality, the higher the uncertainty about company’s prospects. Managers are likely to disclose accounting information including financial errors or distortions of future cash flows for firms in high information uncertainty.
Previous studies have considered accruals quality as a proxy variable for information asymmetry or information risk (Dechow and Dichev, 2002；Francis et al., 2005；Balakrishnan et al., 2012).
As such, if investors make an investment in companies with low accrual quality, they are likely to confront financial uncertainty. They may face increasing possibility to file a lawsuit against the companies. Therefore, we expect that the occurrence of corporate lawsuits (Hypothesis 1) and amounts of litigation (Hypothesis 2) are higher for the firms with low accrual quality. We manually collect data about the existence of lawsuits and the amount of litigation from the footnotes of audit reports. We measure accruals quality (Total AQ) as the standard deviation of residuals from the regressions relating current accruals to cash flows (Francis et al. 2005). We also divide the Total AQ into two parts. One is the accruals quality driven by economic fundamentals (Innate AQ) and the other one driven by management discretion (Discretionary AQ).
The sample of this paper consists of companies listed in the Korea Stock Exchange from 2001 to 2013. We restrict the sample firms for non－financial firms whose fiscal year ends in December.
Final number of sample is 4,901 firm－year observations, of which 1,801 firm－year observations * Professor, School of Business, Chungbuk National University, [e-mail], First Author ** Professor, School of Business, Sungkyunkwan University, [e-mail], Co－author *** Ph. D., School of Business, Sungkyunkwan University, [e-mail], Corresponding Author 208 세무와회계저널 / 제19권 제2호(2018. 4.) (36.7 percent of firms) are under litigation.
The results of empirical analysis are summarized as follows. First, firms with lower accrual quality have higher possibility of facing lawsuits even after controlling other factors which could affect the occurrence of corporate lawsuits. Both innate accruals and discretionary accruals affect the increasing occurrence of corporate lawsuits. Second, firms with lower total accrual quality or discretionary accrual quality have a significantly higher amount of litigation. However, innate accrual quality is not significantly related to the amount of litigation. It implies that investors are not indifferent in making decisions depending on the source of accruals quality. They give greater weight to the accruals that reflect manager’s opportunistic behavior and information uncertainty but do not give serious consideration to the accruals of innate fundamentals.
This means that discretionary accrual quality has more important effect on the amount of litigation than innate accrual quality. Third, when we divide full sample firms into sub－samples based on the type of Big 4/non－Big 4 auditors, the firms audited by Big 4 auditors face higher occurrence of litigation and amount of litigation. Fourth, the firms with speculative grade of credit ratings have stronger relations between accrual quality and litigation than the firms with investment grade. Fifth, firms observations in pre－IFRS period have more significant relations between accrual quality and litigation than those in post－IFRS period.
This study has several contributions. It shows there is a systematic relation between the financial reporting quality proxied by accruals quality and the actual occurrence of litigation. The firms with low accruals quality face higher incidence of corporate litigation because these firms have higher information asymmetry and information uncertainty. It suggests that reporting quality as captured by accruals quality is valuable information for investors. We believe that this study provide important implications for understanding the characteristics of firms with litigation in terms of financial reporting quality. As there is growing number of firms with lawsuits in Korea, findings of this paper will be of interest to practitioners, regulators as well as academicians.

참고자료

· 없음