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Korean Academic Society of Business Administration
[ Article ]
korean management review - Vol. 49, No. 2, pp.415-448
ISSN: 1226-1874 (Print)
Print publication date 30 Apr 2020
Received 22 Aug 2020 Revised 20 Feb 2020 Accepted 22 Feb 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17287/kmr.2020.49.2.415

경영자에 대한 주주의 견제수준이 재무제표 비교가능성에 미치는 영향

김정택* ; 최우석**
*(주저자) 고려대학교 ssummit@naver.com
**(교신저자) 고려대학교 choiw@korea.ac.kr
The Effect of Shareholders’ Surveillance against Top Management on Financial Statements Comparability
Jeongtaek Kim* ; Wooseok Choi**
*Korea University Business School, First Author
**Korea University Business School, Corresponding Author

초록

본 연구는 경영자에 대한 주주의 견제환경이 재무제표 비교가능성에 미치는 영향을 실증조사한다. 둘 간의 인과관계를 예상하는 근거는 다음과 같다. 주인인 주주의 견제 정도에 따라 대리인인 경영자는 자신의 행동을 변화시킬 것이고, 이런 행동에는 자신의 보상과 관련이 있으면서 자신이 최종적인 책임을 지게 되는 회계정보 생산도 포함될 것이다. 한편 주주, 특히 전문투자자에 비해 전문성이 떨어지는 소액주주나 내국인투자자에 비해 정보접근성 및 회계제도․관행에 대한 이해가 떨어지는 외국인투자자의 경우 정보처리비용의 절감 및 투자효율성 제고를 위해 회계정보의 비교가능성에 관심을 가질 유인이 있다. 따라서 주주들이 경영자에게 강한 영향력을 행사할 수 있는 환경일수록 이들은 기업 간 비교가능한 회계정보를 산출할 수 있는 회계시스템을 구축하도록 요구할 것이고 대리인인 경영자는 이러한 요구를 무시하기 힘들 것이다. 이와 같은 논리에 근거하여 경영자에 대한 견제환경으로 주주권의 보호수준 및 외국인지분율을 사용하여 분석한 결과, 주주권의 보호수준과 재무제표 비교가능성은 양(+)의 관계를 가지며, 주주권 중에서도 특히 의결권 행사와 관련된 권리가 비교가능성과 밀접하게 연관되어 있는 것으로 나타났다. 한편, 외국인투자자의 지분율은 재무제표 비교가능성과 유의한 관계를 가지지 않는 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구의 결과는 정보이용자에게 유용한 회계정보를 제공하기 위해서는 주주의 의결권 행사와 관련된 권리를 적극적으로 보호할 필요가 있음을 시사하는데, 이는 주주권을 강화하는 방향으로 진행되고 있는 현재의 제도개정 움직임을 뒷받침하는 실증증거가 될 수 있다.

Abstract

This study examines the effect of corporate governance designed to alleviate agency problems on accounting information quality, extending existing research in two aspects. First, while prior research on corporate governance has focused on the board of directors or the audit committee, this study focuses on shareholders. Second, the financial statements comparability is used as a proxy for accounting information quality. The reason why we conjecture that the cross-sectional comparability of accounting information will vary according to the degree of shareholder power against the top management is as follows. The top management, the agent, will change his or her behavior depending on the degree of surveillance of the shareholder, the owner. Meanwhile, ordinary shareholders who have less expertise than professional investors or foreign investors who have less understanding of accounting-related regulations and practices than domestic investors are more likely interested in the comparability of accounting information in order to reduce information processing costs and thereby improve investment efficiency. Therefore, in an environment where this type of shareholders exert a strong influence on top management, they will require a firm to build an accounting system that can produce comparable accounting information in both cross-sectional and time-series manners.

In this study, we use (1) the level of protection for ordinary shareholder rights and (2) the relative portion of shares of foreign investors as the proxies for the monitoring environment against top management. The financial statements comparability is measured according to the method introduced in De Franco et al.(2011).

The results show that companies whose ordinary shareholders are protected more strongly have a significantly higher financial statements comparability, suggesting that shareholders' monitoring can play an important role in producing relevant accounting information. In particular, the financial statements comparability appears to be closely related to voting rights rather than economic rights, suggesting that in order to produce useful accounting information, companies should focus on improving the effectiveness and convenience of voting rights of ordinary shareholders. On the other hand, foreign investors ownership itself does not have a significant effect on the financial statements comparability. This result appears to deviate from the previous studies documenting that there is a positive relationship between the foreign investor ownership and the quality of accounting information. It is presumed to be due to the fact that the financial statements comparability is relatively ineffective attribute for foreign investors, most of which are institutional investors, because it is not a direct measure of accounting information, but rather a attribute to improve the investment efficiency. Given this fact, our findings are not necessarily in conflict with prior studies.

This study provides related studies with a new perspective by focusing on shareholders that have not been covered much in corporate governance research, and investigating the association between shareholders power and financial statements comparability that might be of interest to ordinary shareholders and foreign investors. Given that the emphasis is more and more on providing capital market participants with relevant information to help their investment decision making, the findings of this study, which suggests several important considerations in the process of corporate governance design, have practical and policy implications.

Keywords:

financial statements comparability, ordinary shareholder rights, minority shareholder rights, foreign investors, corporate governance

키워드:

재무제표 비교가능성, 소수주주권, 외국인투자자, 기업지배구조

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• 저자 김정택은 현재 고려대학교 경영대학 회계학 박사과정에 재학 중이다. 서울대학교 경영대학을 졸업하고 동대학원에서 석사학위를 취득하였다. 관심연구분야는 기업지배구조, 회계감사, 공시 등이다.

• 저자 최우석은 현재 고려대학교 경영대학 교수로 재직중이다. 고려대학교 경영대학을 졸업하고, 미국 University of Texas at Austin에서 회계학 석사학위, Michigan State University 에서 경영학 박사학위를 취득하였다. 관심분야는 재무보고 및 공시, 기업지배구조, 기업은행관계 등이다.