기업의 위치와 음의 이익예측오차 회피 성향 사이의 관계 (The Association between Firm Location and the Tendency to Meet or Beat Analysts’ Earnings Forecasts)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국경영학회
· 수록지 정보 : 경영학연구 / 38권 / 2호 / 611 ~ 639페이지
· 저자명 : 남혜정, 최종학

초록

최근의 재무관리 분야에서는 기업의 위치가 기업 또는 투자자의 활동에 미치는 영향에 대한 연구가 활발하게 진행되고 있다. 본 연구는 이러한 연구방법론을 회계학 연구에 적용하여, 기업의 위치와 음의 이익예측오차 회피현상 사이의 관계를경험적으로 분석하였다. 구체적으로, 기업이 인구가 밀집하고 소득수준이 높은 도시지역에 위치하느냐, 아니면 도시지역이외의 다른 지역에 위치하느냐에 따라 경영자의 이익조정 또는 시장의 기대수준조정의 유인이 달라지는지 검증하였다.
도시지역에 위치한 기업들은 주변에 위치한 많은 투자자들이 다양한 정보를 가지고 밀접하게 감독(monitoring)할 수 있기 때문에 이익이나 시장의 기대를 조정을 할 유인이 감소할 수 있다. 그러나 반대로 도시지역에 위치한 기업일수록 주변에서 관심을 가지고 지켜보는 투자자나 다른 이해관계자들이 많기 때문에, 이들을 만족시키기 위하여 더욱 이익이나 시장의 기대를 조정할 가능성도 있다.
본 연구에서는 이러한 대립적 가설을 경험적으로 분석하였다. 분석에는 2000년부터 2004년까지의 총 1,792개 기업-연도의 이용가능한 모든 자료가 사용되었다. 기업의 위치는 기업 본사의 주소지에 따라 구분하였으며, 기업의 입지 차이가음의 이익예측오차 회피정도, 즉 기업이 발표한 실제이익이 재무분석가의 예측이익과 같거나 초과하는 정도(meet or beat, 즉 재무분석가의 이익예측오차의 부호가 음이 아닌 정도)에 영향을 미치는지를 분석하였다. 분석 결과에 의하면, 서울/경기 지역에 위치한 기업일수록 발표한 이익수치가 재무분석가의 실제이익과 같거나 초과하는 정도가 낮았으며, 이는 시장의 감독이 기업의 이익이나 시장의 기대조정을 감소시킨다는 가설을 지지하는 것이다. 이러한 결과는 여러 추가적인 분석에서도 강건성을 가지고 있었다.

영어초록

This study investigates the association between firm location and the firm’s tendency to meet or beat analysts’ consensus earings forecasts. Recently, finance literature on the effect of a firm location has received greater attention. Related prior studies find the evidence that firm location affects managers’ as well as other market participants’ decision-makings. By linking managers’ tendencies to manage their earnings with firm location, we examine whether the firms located in urban areas are more or less likely to manage their earnings or the market’s level of expectation.
We develop our hypotheses based on the competing theory. First, the firms located in urban areas are less likely to manage their earnings or market’s expectation than firms in rural areas because of close monitoring from market participants who live in nearby urban areas and have a lot of information about the firms. Close monitoring can mitigate or even nullify the earnings management by firms which in turn decrease the firm’s incentives to manage earnings. We call it monitoring perspective.
In contrast, the market pressure perspective predicts that urban firms are more likely to manage their earnings or the market’s level of expectation than rural firms are because of high market pressure from the market participants who live in nearby urban areas. Studies report that firms receive more attention from media or investor community tend to manage earnings more to satisfy the expectation or demand of the market participants.
This paper empirically explores these predictions with 1,792 firm-year observations from listed firms in Korean Stock Exchange for the period of year 2000 to 2004. We classify a firm’s location based on the address where a firm’s headquarter is located. That is, if a firm’s headquarter is located in Seoul or Kyunggi area, (the metropolitan area which surrounds the city of Seoul) then we code the firm as an urban firm and otherwise a rural firm. The use of Korean data for this research purpose is particularly important because there is a clear distinction between Seoul and surrounding metropolitan area and other rural areas. In contrast, it may be difficult to differentiate urban versus rural areas in other countries. In the empirical anslyses, we measure the tendency of avoiding a negative earnings surprise as proxy for the degree of earnings management or market's expectation management.
Consistent with the monitoring perspective, we find that the firms located in Seoul or Kyunggi are less likely to meet or beat analysts’ consensus forecasts. In addition, they are also less likely to meet or just beat (i.e., beat the forecast by only a small margin) the forecasts, compared with rural firms. These imply that monitoring of the market plays an important role in reducing a firms’ incentives to meet the market’s expectation. As a result, firms are less likely to engage in earnings management or expectation management to meet the expectation. In the sense that this study identifies a new incentive, i.e. firm location, to manipulate earnings or market’s expectation, this study contributes to regulators, academics, as well as practitioners.
In contrast to the findings of this study, Choi et al.(2006) document that firms located in Seoul are more likely to adopt greater magnitude of discretionary accruals (both incomeincreasing and income-decreasing accruals) than firms located in rural areas. The findings in this study suggest that even urban firms may engage in more discretionary accounting choices, they are less likely to try to meet the demand of investors. Further study should consider the effect of firm location choice on firm’s various behaviors not investigated in this study.

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