高階經理人獎酬與財務預測調降之研究

Abstract

現代企業因為所有權與經營權分開因此產生代理問題，公司經理人的目的是極大化自己的利益，卻不一定代表股東的最大利益。爲了減輕代理問題，發展出與公司績效相聯結之獎酬制度，主要成份是以股權為主之報酬。這些年來股權相關的獎酬日益成熟與普遍，所佔經理人總報酬比重也愈來愈高，這確實解決部分代理問題，許多實證結果也證實CEO獎酬與公司績效是顯著正向關係。但是讓經理人誘因與股價關聯度太高，會不會造成經理人藉著操弄財務數字來操弄股價，以達到自己財富極大化，卻傷害股東利益，而呈現出績效獎酬制度黑暗的一面呢？

本研究的目的是想透過公司對於高階經理人獎酬方式，來探討經理人基於自利動機，是否會影響到公司採行積極的財務預測之研究。研究期間是民國92至93年，以發行員工認股權憑證之上市公司共382個樣本公司，根據樣本公司是否調降財測而分成兩群組，以二元迴歸做假設檢定。實證結果發現：

1.調降財測公司之相對總薪酬顯著高於未調降財測公司。 2.在股票紅利部份，調降財測公司顯著高於未調降財測公司；現金獎酬與員工認股權憑證價差部分則無差異。 3.持有已到期可執行與未到期不可執行之員工認股權憑證部分，兩群組無顯著差異。 4.調降財測公司之相對股價敏感度顯著高於未調降財測公司。

綜上所述，讓高階經理人獎酬與公司股價高度聯結，可能會讓高階經理人有動機跳過努力經營公司讓公司獲利能力增加，而是直接透過操弄財務預測數字影響股價，以達到增加自己財富，卻損害股東財富之結果，這應該是主管機關與股東必須留意之處。

The separation of ownership and control in modern enterprise causes the principal-agent problem. Those managers attempt to maximize their own profit instead of shareholders’. In order to align managers’ incentive with those of shareholders, performance-based compensation is developed. The main part of it is equity-based compensation. The percentage of equity-based compensation of the managers has been increasing dramatically in these years.

Performance-based compensation has been solved part of the agency problem. Many researches suggested that there is a positive relation between CEO’s compensation and company’s performance. However, will the managers with higher incentives engage in manipulating earnings forecast to enhance stock price instead of managing the corporation？

The purpose of this paper is to study if the top managers’ self-interest incentive will influence the corporate to take aggressive earnings forecast, and to examine the effect of managers’ different composition of compensation on earnings forecast revision. We examined 382 samples of listed company that issued stock option and the research period is from 2003 to 2004. The 382 samples were divided into two groups based on if the earnings forecast was revised downward. The empirical results can be summarized as follows： 1.The relative compensation of revised group is higher than the un-revised group. 2.The relative Stock bonus in revised group is higher than the other group. 3.It makes no significant difference if owning higher relative vested stock option or unvested stock option in two groups. 4.The relative sensitivity of equity-based compensation is higher in revised group than in un-revised group.

Based on the above results, the connection between top managers’ reward and the stock price of company is very possible to cause those managers to influence stock price by manipulating earnings forecast instead of putting efforts on managing company. Related authorization and stakeholders should concern this kind of situation.