董事會政治連結對法人說明會的影響

The Impact of Political Connection on Conference Calls

本研究以2008年至2011年之台灣上市櫃公司為樣本，探討公司董事會成員政治連結與召開法人說明會之關聯。本研究定義政治連結為若公司董事會任何一位成員曾經歷年或現在擔任中央政府官員、民意代表或政黨黨職則具有政治連結。研究結果發現當董事會成員具有政治連結時，召開法人說明會之意願較低，表示當董事會中存在政治人物時，會比較不願意進行自願性揭露，以避免受社會較多關注與監督。此外，若只以有召開法說會之公司為樣本，本研究發現當董事會具有政治連結時，會在法說會中提供較完整的資訊，由此推測，具有政治背景之董事們，在承受較多外部關注與監督下，一旦決定召開法人說明會，反而揭露的程度較高，藉此消弭投資人對其政治影響力之疑慮。本研究進一步發現不同的政治職位，對公司法人說明會召開的意願及揭露程度亦有不同的影響。

This paper tests the relation between political connection of board members and conference calls. We use Taiwanese listed firms as our sample and collect political background data of board members from 2008 to 2011. We define a board is politically connected if a specific member is or was a central government official, an elected representative, or holding a post in a political party. We find that politically connected boards are less willing to hold conference calls. This result suggests that firms with board members with political backgrounds are more likely to restrict information outflows to avoid public attention or lower monitoring from outsiders. Using a sample including only firms that hold conference calls, we find that firms with politically connected boards give more information in the conferences relative to firms without political boards. We conjecture this is probably because politically connected boards attract more public attention and once they decide to hold a conference, they tend to disclosure more information in the conference in order to reduce outsiders' concerns toward its political influences. Moreover, we find that each type of political position affects differently on the holding of conference calls and the information disclosed in the conferences.