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Korean Academic Society of Business Administration
[ Article ]
korean management review - Vol. 48, No. 4, pp.1095-1122
ISSN: 1226-1874 (Print)
Print publication date 31 Aug 2019
Received 26 Nov 2018 Revised 15 Jun 2019 Accepted 08 Jul 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17287/kmr.2019.48.4.1095

고객기업의 재무제표 비교가능성은 감사보수에 반영되는가?

이우재* ; 최승욱**
*(주저자) 충남대학교 경상대학 woojae.lie@gmail.com
**(교신저자) 경희대학교 경영대학 suchoi@khu.ac.kr
Does Financial Statement Comparability Influence Audit Pricing?
Woo Jae Lee* ; Seung Uk Choi**
*Visiting Professor, College of Economics and Management, Chungnam National University, First Author
**Assistant Professor, Department of Accounting and Taxation, Kyung Hee University, Corresponding Author

초록

본 연구는 고객기업의 재무제표 비교가능성이 감사계약 체결 시 감사보수 결정에 영향을 미치는지 조사한다. 감사인은 감사계약을 수임할 때 명백한 회계기준 위반이나 감사범위의 제한 등과 같이 감사의견에 변형을 가져오는 위험이 아닐지라도 고객기업의 재무적 취약성, 파산가능성, 경영진과의 마찰이나 외부투자자의 재무제표 의존도 등에 따라 부담을 느낄 수 있다. 이러한 감사수임위험(Engagement risk)은 직접적으로 재무제표 감사 실패와 연결되지는 않더라도, 향후 감사인이 잠재적 소송 등에 노출될 가능성이 상대적으로 높은 고객기업에 대해 가지는 위험을 의미한다. 본 연구는 관련 선행연구를 바탕으로 재무제표의 비교가능성이 이러한 감사수임위험과 결부되어 감사보수에 체계적 영향을 미칠 것으로 예측한다. 우선, 재무제표의 높은 비교가능성은 투자자의 회계정보 획득비용을 줄이므로 비교가능성이 충분히 확보되는 기업이라면 투자자가 감사인의 의견에만 의존할 가능성이 현저히 낮을 것이다. 또한 타 기업과의 재무제표 비교가능성이 높은 기업은 주가가 일시에 폭락하는 경향이 사전에 예방되는 경향이 있으므로, 만약 감사인이 이러한 기업을 감사한다면 피소가능성, 감사실패가능성이 상대적으로 낮아져 감사위험 수준이 낮을 것으로 예상된다. 바꿔 말하면 재무제표 비교가능성이 낮은 기업에 대해서는 감사인이 평가하는 위험이 상대적으로 높을 것이며, 이는 감사보수 결정에 반영될 것이다.

이러한 예측에 근거하여 본 연구에서 조사하여 발견한 결과는 다음과 같다. 우선, 재무제표 비교가능성이 낮을수록 해당 기업의 감사보수는 높아지는 경향이 있었다. 경제적 효과 측면에서 비교가능성이 1표준편차 감소할 때 감사보수는 5.8~6.7% 증가하였다. 이는 감사보수 결정과정에서 고객기업의 재무제표 비교가능성이 유의한 영향을 미치는 것을 의미한다. 특히, 고객기업의 규모, 복잡성, 손실여부 등 여러 고유 특성들을 통제한 이후에도 재무제표 비교가능성은 감사보수의 결정요인으로 작용하였다. 또한 감사보수를 감사시간과 시간당보수로 구분하여 각각 비교가능성과 조사한 결과, 낮은 비교가능성은 감사시간과 시간당보수를 모두 높이는 것으로 나타났다.

다음으로, 상대적으로 긴 계속감사기간과 Big 4 감사인과의 계약 여부는 낮은 재무제표 비교가능성과 감사보수 간 양의 관계를 증분적으로 완화하는 효과가 있었다. 이는 고객기업에 대한 핵심 감사정보가 상대적으로 적은 감사인들은 낮은 재무제표 비교가능성을 감사위험으로 인지하여 높은 감사보수를 수임하는 반면, 오랜 감사기간 동안 고객기업에 대한 지식을 축적하거나 인적․물적 자원을 충분히 확보 가능한 고품질 감사인은 낮은 재무제표 비교가능성으로 인한 감사위험을 흡수하고 있음을 의미한다. 또한 이 결과는 이들 감사인이 상대적으로 비교가능성이 높은 재무제표가 보고되도록 유도하는 결과일 가능성도 있다. 추가분석으로, 내생성 완화를 위해 성향점수로 매칭된 표본을 이용한 결과와 비교가능성의 다른 대용치를 이용한 결과 등에서도 모두 질적으로 유사한 결과를 발견하였다.

Abstract

This study analyzes the association between client’s financial statement comparability and audit fees. We further examine whether auditor tenure or auditor size affect the relation between financial statement comparability and audit fees. Auditors may be burdened with the audit contract even if their clients do not clearly violate accounting standard. For instance, possibility of bankruptcy, management conflict, extensive reliance on financial statements by external investors could be audit risks to the incumbent auditor. These engagement risks may lead auditors to be involved in a lawsuit. We suggest that lower financial statement comparability is one of these engagement risks for the following reasons.

First, the comparability of financial statements is an influential factor toward audit contract that should be fully considered because it is directly related to the information usage costs of investors or potential investors. If a firm reports highly comparable financial statements, it is predicted that the probability of depending only on the auditor's opinion would be significantly lower for an investor with a low acquisition costs of accounting information. In other words, an investor of a firm with lower comparability is more likely to be reliant on the financial statements of the firm, which increases the auditor's risk of being burdened. Therein, lower comparability of financial statements lead to higher audit fees.

Second, a firm that report highly comparable financial statements with other firms tend to be face less stock price crash risk. If an auditor do not recognize this in advance, it is very likely to become involved in a lawsuit. In other words, if an auditor audits a firm with highly comparable financial statements, the likelihood of being audit failure would be relatively lower than the other cases. Collectively, we first hypothesize and predict that there exists a positive association between reporting lower comparable financial statements and charging higher audit fees.

Next, this study suggests that the negative relationship between comparability and audit fees may be strengthened or mitigated depending on auditor’s characteristics. First, we expect that auditor tenure affects this association. Prior research provides two different perspective of audit tenure on audit quality. On the one hand, studies argue that longer tenure increase auditor’s knowledge of the client firm that leads to higher audit quality. On the other hand, studies also insist that longer tenure impairs auditor independence. Thus, we provide a null hypothesis for testing the effect of tenure on our first hypothesis.

Previous studies document that large auditors provide high quality audit services. The underlying assumption of this finding is that the larger the size of the auditor, the greater the transfer of knowledge within the audit firm. Thereby, Big N auditors may maintain a certain level of audit service through strict quality control. Thus, we predict that our hypothesis 1 is affected by client firms those who made contract with Big N auditors.

By using firms listed in Korean stock market from year 2011 to 2016, we find that auditors charge higher audit fees to clients with lower financial statement comparability as expected. This finding implies that financial statement comparability is one of the key factors that affects audit pricing. We further find that a positive relation between lower financial statement comparability and higher audit fees incrementally decreases in the presence of longer auditorclient relationship and the contract with Big 4 auditors. These findings suggest that the increased expertise due to long audit contract and the knowledge transfer inside Big 4 audit firms mitigate the effect of low financial statement comparability reflected on audit fees. In addition, our results show that both audit hours and unit audit fee increase as the level of financial statement comparability decreases.

Our study contributes to the literature in the following ways. First, the results of the current study suggests that comparability of financial statements is one of the key determinants of audit fees. Second, the empirical finding that the longer tenure mitigates the effect of lower comparability of financial statements on audit fees is a result of emphasizing the increased expertise of auditors with longer tenure. Also, we provide that Big N auditors are less likely to reflect lower comparability of financial statements as an audit risk by charging incrementally higher audit fees. Lastly, our empirical finding that auditors charge higher audit fees on clients who report less comparable financial statements suggests that investors need to be cautious about accounting information of the firm with these higher acquisition costs.

Keywords:

Financial statement comparability, audit fee, audit hour, auditor tenure, Big 4 auditor

키워드:

재무제표 비교가능성, 감사보수, 감사시간, 계속감사기간, Big 4 감사인

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• 저자 이우재는 현재 충남대학교 경상대학 초빙조교수이다. 고려대학교 경영대학에서 박사학위를 취득하였으며, 주요 연구분야는 재무회계와 회계감사이다.

• 저자 최승욱은 현재 경희대학교 경영대학 회계․세무학과 조교수이다. 고려대학교 경영대학에서 박사학위를 취득하였으며, 주요 연구분야는 재무회계와 회계감사이다.