董事會特性與財務報告重編

Abstract

本研究探討董事會特性對財務報表品質之影響，並以報表重編作為財務報表品質之代理變數。本研究以民國86年至91年間曾重編財務報表之國內上市公司為研究樣本，採配對樣本法及LOGISTIC迴歸分析檢測假說。研究結果顯示，董事會規模較大、董事會成員適任性較差（董事任期較短或董事中具備財務或會計專長之成員較少）之公司，其財務報告重編機率較高。惟本研究並未發現董事成員獨立性（以外部董事之比率衡量之）與報表重編有顯著負關係。另外，本研究亦指出，股份控制權偏離程度愈大之公司，較可能重編報表，但會計師事務所規模對報表重編並無顯著影響。上述實證結果之政策意涵為，若能強化董事之適任性，將有助於提高財務報表品質，降低報表重編之機率，而擴大董事會規模可能對公司治理之成效有不利之影響。

The purpose of our research is to examine effects of board characteristics on the financial statement quality by using restatements as a proxy. We collect restatements sampled from listed companies in Taiwan between 1997 and 2002 and use a matched-sample LOGISTIC analysis to validate the hypotheses. The empirical results find a significantly positive (negative) correlation between the board size (competence of directors) and the probability of restatements. In addition, this study shows that firms with higher deviation between cash flow rights and control rights are more likely to re/write their financial statements. Nonetheless, the audit firm size is uncorrelated with the probability of restatements. The main implication from the above findings is that enhancing the competence of board directors would improve the quality of financial statements while increasing the board size may have an adverse effect.