財務報告使用者資訊需求與關鍵查核事項內容相似度

Information Demand of Financial Statement Users and the Similarity of Key Audit Matters

本文以臺灣上市櫃公司為樣本，探討財務報告使用者資訊需求與關鍵查核事項（Key Audit Matters, KAMs）內容相似度之關聯性。本文基於會計師揭露KAM的動機，對於KAM內容相似程度做兩個方向的推論：（一）依幫助行為理論，當財務報告使用者的資訊需求較高時，有限注意的投資者較多，會計師可能偏好在KAM中揭露更多資訊，以保護投資者，導致KAM相似度較低。（二）依成本效益及風險擴大理論，資訊需求較高時，隱含非專業的投資者較多，其資訊需求可能與KAM性質不完全相符，且會計師亦擔心額外揭露KAM的內容會被非專業投資者誤解並造成市場波動，反而引發事後的訴訟風險，因此偏好較少的異動，導致和以前年度相似度高的KAM。實證結果支持第二種推論，當資訊需求程度較高時，KAM的內容相似度較高，即會計師在面對較高的資訊需求時，會以成本效益及風險擴大為主要的考量。

This study examines the relationship between the information needs of financial statement users and the content similarity of key audit matters (KAMs). This paper infers auditors’motivations for disclosing KAMs from the following two aspects. First, according to the theory of helping behavior, when financial statement users have higher information needs, which means there are more investors with limited attention, auditors may prefer to disclose more information in KAMs to protect investors, resulting in lower KAM similarity. Second, based on cost-benefit consideration and the theory of risk amplification, higher information demand implies a higher proportion of non-professional investors. It may not be cost-efficient to provide additional KAMs because the information may not be what these nonprofessional investors need, and auditors are also worried that these people may misunderstand the disclosure and cause further market fluctuations, leading to subsequent litigation risks. Therefore, they may prefer to make fewer changes, resulting in KAMs that are highly similar to previous years. Empirical results show that when information demand is high, the content similarity of KAM is higher. In other words, when auditors face higher information demand, cost-effectiveness and risk amplification will be the main considerations.