實質盈餘管理與會計師產業專業及審計公費之關聯性：公司管理階層對審計品質之認知

The Relationships between Auditor Industry Specialization, Audit Fees and Real Earnings Management: The Management Perceptions on Audit Quality

本文以2003年至2012年間台灣上市（櫃）公司為研究對象，參照Roychowdhury（2006）及Cohen, Dey, and Lys（2008）衡量實質盈餘管理之模式，從公司管理階層觀點評估會計師產業專業、審計公費及是否具向上操控應計盈餘誘因後，在跨越前期盈餘門檻的特定動機下對於實質盈餘管理之運用情況。實證結果顯示，公司管理階層經評估會計師具有較高的產業專精程度，考量產業專家會計師可能對裁決性應計項目有較大的抑制，將傾向運用操縱銷貨之向上實質盈餘管理以跨越前期盈餘門檻。公司管理階層評估若給付較高的審計公費，預期將可能引發會計師與公司間較高的經濟依存度，會計師不致過度干涉公司對裁決性應計項目的操縱，公司管理階層傾向減少對向上實質盈餘管理之整體運用。最後，公司若具有向上操控應計盈餘誘因，整體而言，管理階層於會計年度間顯著採用向上實質盈餘管理之活動，顯示向上操控應計盈餘誘因實則隱含公司強烈向上操縱盈餘之整體動機。

The purpose of this research is to investigate management perceptions of audit quality and how this pertains to the relationships between auditor's industry specialization, audit fees and real earnings management, particularly in firms with an incentive to avoiding earnings decline. The models proposed by Roychowdhury (2006) and Cohen, Dey and Lys (2008) were employed to test our research hypotheses by measuring real earnings management in a sample of TWSE and GreTai companies for the period 2003-2012. Our findings indicate that auditor's industry specialization can constrain management's intention to employ accrual-based earnings management, which can lead to sales manipulation to reach earnings target. Moreover, management expects that when a company is charged higher audit fees, the economic dependence between the auditors and clients will make it easier for the company to employ earnings management through discretionary accruals. Thus, management tends to reduce the use of upward real earnings management activities. Finally, the incentive of upward accrual earnings management is positively associated with real earnings management. This would suggest that providing incentives for upward accrual earnings management has implications for strong overall activities of upward earnings management.