董監事治理與盈餘管理之關連性研究

Corporate Governance and Earinings Management

本文旨在探討董監事治理與盈餘管理的關連性，文中以股份控制權與盈餘分配權的偏離程度（股份控制權與盈餘分配權的比值）作為衡量大小股東利益衝突的指標。實證結果顯示，大小股東利益衝突亦愈嚴重（股份控制權偏離盈餘分配權愈大），盈餘管理的幅度愈大。另以配對樣本分析，發現董監關係愈獨立之公司，管理當局進行盈餘管理的幅度愈小；具愈多財務知識或監督經驗的獨立董監事之公司，管理當局進行盈餘管理的幅度愈小。此結果代表治理較佳的公司，較可能忠實表達其經營狀況。本文進一步以配對樣本分析何者對盈餘管理的影響較強，公司大小股東利益衝突愈嚴重，董事會愈不會節制盈餘管理的行為，且會計師（五大）亦無法有效的發揮外部的查核機制，意即董事會對盈餘管理的影響比會計師強。董監關係愈獨立對盈餘管理的影響，亦強過會計師的查核；具愈多財務知識或監督經驗的獨立董監事對盈餘管理的影響，亦強過會計師的查核。此結果在在顯示，股份控制權與盈餘分配權愈趨於一致、董監關係愈獨立以及愈多財務知識或監督經驗的獨立董監事，確實能提昇公司內部的治理機制。

The traditional agency problem suggests conflicts of interests between managers and shareholders or creditors. However, agency problem in Taiwanese companies is the expropriation from minority shareholders as well as creditors by controlling shareholders (Shleifer and Vishny 1997), which may be due to the deviation of control right and cash flow right. The more extent the divergence is, the weaker the corporate governance is, and the more severe agency problem will be. We examine the relation between corporate governance mechanisms, measured by divergence between control rights and cash flow rights, and earnings management measured by discretionary current accruals, as suggested by Teoh et al. (1998). We find that the more divergence between the control rights diverge form cash flow rights, the more likely the managers engage in earnings management. We also find that firms with independent directors and supervisors and firms whose independent directors and supervisors with financial expertise are more likely to engage in less earnings management, respectively, under the matched-pair sample. This study also compares the internal monitoring power (i.e., board of directors) with the external monitoring power (i.e., external auditor) of constraining earnings management, and examines which monitoring power is stronger in its oversight function. From our matched-pair sample, we also find that the power of constraining earnings management from the board of directors is stronger than that of auditors, which suggests that board of directors may perform the better oversight function than that of auditors.