中國特別處理企業之會計穩健性與公司治理

Accounting Conservatism and Corporate Governance in China Special Treatment Firms

本研究探討盈餘品質與公司治理之關聯是否受到企業經營狀態與危機時點之影響，以遭中國證監會列為特別處理企業作為特別處理危機樣本。本研究參考Khan & Watts (2009) 之C-Score 衡量盈餘穩健性，作為盈餘品質之衡量變數。研究結果發現不同經營狀態（i.e.危機發生與否）與不同危機時點（i.e.危機發生前後），公司治理機制與會計穩健性間呈現差異性之變化。當公司處於危機發生狀態，相較於正常營運，會計穩健性較高，而公司治理機制與會計穩健性間於危機發生時更傾向互補關係，支持供給面觀點 (Wang,2006)。另一方面，危機發生後，會計穩健性與公司治理機制間更具互補關係。甚者，不同類別之公司治理機制所發揮的效用不同。董事會結構與所有權結構之治理功能在正常營運狀態下之公司更為彰顯，對會計穩健性政策分別呈現替代與互補之效應。

Recently, China is experiencing rapid economic growth. The governmentprogressively promotes corporate governance and strengthens earnings quality.However, frequent occurrences of corporate financial distress and fraud happen.Previous literature has not investigated the relationship between financial distress,accounting conservatism, and corporate governance. This study examines corporatefinancial distress conditions and timing influence the relationship between earningsconservatism and corporate governance. Referring to Khan & Watts (2009), thisstudy adopts C-Score as proxy for accounting conservatism. Based on the previousliterature, the sample consists of A-share listed firms in China that experiencespecial treatment rules between 1998 and 2011. The empirical results show that the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms and accountingconservatism displays non-linear variation with different business conditions anddistress timing. When the firm is at financial distress relative to normal operations,corporate earnings are more conservative. Further, in financial distress, thereappear to be a complementary relation between corporate governance andaccounting conservatism, consistent with a supply perspective (Wang, 2006). Thereseems to be a more complementary relation between corporate governance andaccounting conservatism following the financial distress. Next, the different typesof corporate governance mechanisms cause diverse effects. During normaloperations, the governance of the ownership structure (or the board of directors)has a stronger influence on the complementary (or supplementary) relation withaccounting conservatism. These results assist academics and practitioners to realizehow management discloses financial information under interactions among variousits business conditions, distress timing, and corporate governance mechanisms.