審計委員會設置及其品質與盈餘穩健性

The Establishment and Quality of Audit Committees and Earnings Conservatism

本文針對2007年至2014年在臺灣證券交易所及櫃檯買賣中心交易之上市（櫃）公司為研究樣本，探討公司設置審計委員會與報導盈餘穩健性之關聯性，並進一步分析審計委員會的品質是否會影響公司盈餘穩健性的程度。本文衡量審計委員會品質的方式係包括審計委員會規模、召集人或成員具備專業性（財務專長、公司治理專長）及活動力（開會次數、出席狀況）等多項指標。實證結果發現，相對於未設置審計委員會的公司，有設置審計委員會的公司，其盈餘穩健性較高。此外，本文進一步分析發現，當審計委員會規模愈大，公司的盈餘穩健性會愈高；而當審計委員會具備財務專長之人數愈多及成員開會出席率愈高時，公司的盈餘穩健性會愈低。

"Using firms listed in the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) and Taipei Exchange (TPEx)from 2007 to 2014 as a sample, this study examines the effects of the establishment andquality of audit committees on earnings conservatism. The audit committee quality ismeasured by multiple indicators including the size of the audit committee, whether theconvener or members have expertise in financial or corporate governance, and theactivities of the audit committee (i.e., the frequency of meetings and members’attendance).The empirical results indicate that the firms with audit committees have significantlyconservative earnings than those without audit committees. Further analysis shows that thefirms with larger audit committee size tend to report more conservative earnings, and thefirms with more members with financial specialization and more frequent audit committeemembers’attendance tend to report less conservative earnings."