기업의 이익목표 달성을 위한 이익조정과 한국 재무분석가의 인식

국문 초록 (Abstract)

본 연구에서는 경영자의 기업의 이익목표 달성을 위한 이익조정에 대하여 재무분석가가 어떠한 인식을 가지고 있는지에 대해 알아보기 위해 185명의 한국 재무분석가를 대상으로 설문조사 및 실증분석을 병행하여 분석한 연구이다. 설문조사결과, 우리나라 재무분석가는 분석기업이 자신의 이익예측치를 정확히 달성(meet)하였을 때 가장 만족도가 높았으며, 분석기업이 자신의 이익예측치를 달성하였을 경우 기업의 성장전망이 밝고 미래성과가 안정적이며 경영진에 대한 신뢰가 증가한다고 답변하였다. 또한 재무분석가는 분석기업이 자신의 이익예측치를 달성하는 것이 분석기업과의 우호적인 관계를 유지하는 데 도움이 된다고 응답하였다. 한편, 재무분석가는 분석기업이 본인의 이익예측치를 달성하지 못할 경우, 해당기업의 미래성과에 대한 불확실성이 증가하여 기업의 성과를 예측하기 어렵고, 분석기업이 밝히지 않은 문제가 있다고 생각하는 것으로 나타났다. 또한 대다수의 재무분석가는 이익목표달성을 위한 이익 조정이 약간 혹은 많이 있는 것으로 인식하고 있으며 분석기업이 이익조정을 했을 경우 이를 이익예측에 반영하고, 기업이 발생액을 통한 이익조정뿐 아니라 다양한 실물활동의 조정을 통하여 이익을 조정한다고 생각하는 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 설문조사를 통해 본 연구는 이익목표 달성을 위한 이익조정 현상을 바라보는 경영자와 재무분석가 간 인식에 상당한 차이가 있다는 것을 발견하였다. 마지막으로 경영자의 이익조정과 재무분석가가 인식하는 재무정보의 품질과의 관계를 분석한결과, 발생액과 실물활동을 통한 이익조정은 재무분석가가 평가하는 기업의 공시품질과 유의한 음(-)의 관계에 있는 것으로 나타났다. 이는 기업이 발생액과 실물활동을 조정하여 이익을 과대보고 할 때 이러한 이익정보를 이용하는 재무분석가가 해당재무정보의 품질이 낮다고 인식하게 된다는 것을 의미한다.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In a survey conducted for U.S and Korean chief financial officers about their financial reporting behavior, managers consider accounting earnings as on of the most important performance measure, and are willing to sacrifice economic value for meeting or beating earnings benchmarks (Graham et al. 2005; Chun et al. 2012). Given the increasing research and the related concerns about managers` earnings management, a natural question arises as to the perception of financial analysts, who are the primary users of financial accounting information. Therefore, we seek to assess the perception of analysts of such managers` financial reporting behavior using a combination of a survey instrument and empirical study. To do this, we first conduct a survey that asks 185 Korean analysts of 15 brokerage firms to describe their views related to the firm`s financial reporting behavior, specifically earnings management using discretionary accruals and real actions to meet earnings targets. Then, we compare the result of our survey with the one of Chun et al.(2012)`s survey to investigate the gaps in opinion between analysts and CFOs on the firms` earnings management to meet financial reporting goals. Lastly, we empirically examine whether earnings management via accruals and real decisions directly affects quality of financial reporting that analysts assess by OLS regression. We employ discretionary accruals as our proxy for accrual-based earnings management. Following Kothari et al.(2005), we include return on assets(ROA) as a regressor in the estimation model to control for the effect of performance on discretionary accruals. We also measure the extent of real earnings management by the sum of abnormal cash flow from operations, discretionary expenditures, and production costs using Roychowdhury (2006)`s models. We use disclosure quality as a proxy of financial reporting quality data from our survey by asking analysts to select the firms with high and low disclosure quality. The main results are as follows. First, our survey results indicate that analysts are mostly satisfied when the firms report the exactly the same earnings as their forecast numbers since forecast accuracy impacts on analysts` career concerns and external reputation. This contrasts with the results in a Chun et al.(2012)`s survey that CFOs prefer to report slightly beaten earings to signal higher future growth prospects to the external investors. Second, analysts believe that meeting earnings benchmarks relates to firm`s better growth prospects, management credibility and stable operating performance in the future. Also, analysts thinks that meeting analysts forecasts helps to maintain good relationship between analysts and managements, even though CFOs do not agree with relationship incentives. Third, analysts reply that the majority of firms are engaging in earnings management to meet or beat market expectations. In contrast, only a few of CFOs admit that they would sacrifice economic value to achieve earnings targets in Chun et al.(2012)`s survey. Also analysts state that they reflect the implication of earnings management into their earnings forecast. Fourth, analysts think that managers use a large set of earnings management methods to achieve a earnings targets, which involve not only pure accounting discretion such as changing accounting principles or estimation, but also real decisions such as decreasing discretionary spending, delaying starting a new projects, accelerating sales, selling of fixed assets, etc. However, CFOs reply that they would not take any accounting actions to meet earnings benchmarks, nor would they take real actions except for decreasing discretionary expenses. Lastly, the results of empirical test using OLS regression suggest that disclosure quality perceived by analyst is higher for firms with low level of accrual and real earnings management. This study contributes to the literature in several ways. This is the first study to ask directly ana

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