產品保固與監理機制

Product Warranty and Governance Mechanisms

產品保固的認列屬於未來事項之估計，先前研究發現產品保固費用之認列相對複雜，且企業確實將產品保固作為盈餘管理之工具之一。本文利用臺灣公司產品保固資訊之揭露，輔以臺灣簽證會計師之特色，探討公司內、外部監理機制（即董事會與會計師）與異常保固費用認列之關聯性。本文以2012年至2015年有認列產品保固之臺灣上、市櫃公司為觀察值，我們發現公司經產業專家會計師查核可減緩過多保固費用之認列。進一步區分樣本後，監理機制與異常保固費用之關聯僅在以認列過多保固費用的公司為觀察值時顯著，然而以認列過少保固費用的公司為觀察值時其關聯則不顯著，可能因產品保固認列同時傳遞企業產品品質訊息之故。本文結果支持有效的外部監理機制確實可以減緩企業過度認列產品保固費用。

Previous studies document that the recognition of product warranty is complex and can be used as a tool for earnings management. This study attempts to investigate whether two well-known governance mechanisms, board of directors and external auditors, can alleviate manager's recognition of abnormal warranty expenses. By using listed companies with product warranty reserves from 2012 to 2015 in Taiwan, we find that industry-specialized audit partners can effectively alleviate the recognition of abnormal warranty expenses. We further partition our observations into two groups with positive/negative abnormal warranty expenses and the above associations still hold for the former group. Companies with negative abnormal warranty expenses may simultaneously signal their confidence with their product quality, and hence we find no results for these companies. Our results suggest that effective external governance mechanisms can mitigate managers' recognition of abnormal warranty expenses.