상시감사체제가 재무제표 유용성에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 분기보고서의 검토를 중심으로

Since fiscal year 2000, KSE and KOSDAQ companies are required to disclose their quarterly reports. But only the reports of large companies (over asset size of 2 trillion won) and financial institutions are to be reviewed by the external auditor, therefore, the reliability of quarterly financial information is questionable. The quarterly review in Korea is initiated by Korean government for the purpose of building continuous audit system. If an external auditor performs a quarterly review on the financial statements, we anticipate that this review will increase and, in consequence, improve the reliability and usefulness of quarterly reports respectively. In other words, we expect that quarterly review contributes to restrict earnings management and to increase the level of association between accounting income and stock price. In this study, we analyze that whether performance of quarterly review by the external auditor may affect the quarterly reports, semi-annual reports and annual reports in terms of two perspectives. Firstly, we analyze that if an external auditor performs a quarterly review on the financial statements, then this review restrict earnings management. Secondly, we analyze that if an external auditor performs a quarterly review on the financial statements, then this review will increase the level of association between accounting income and stock price. The level of earnings management is measured by the absolute value of current discretionary accruals. Additionally, for the test of level of association between accounting information and stock price, we develop test models using the theoretical framework of Ohlson(1995). The results of this study show the following things. First, we find evidence that quarterly reports reviewed by external auditor are closely related to the decreased earnings management. Also quarterly reports reviewed by external auditor in our sample show a strong association between accounting information and stock price in general. The result of this study implies that the external auditor’s quarterly review improves the usefulness of accounting information. The expansion of the review of quarterly financial statements is expected to improve the reliability of the quarterly financial statements, let alone reliability of the annual reports through expansion of continuous audit system.