비감사서비스의 제공과 회계정보의 유용성

The regulator and capital market participants are concerned that an increasing amount of fees firms pay to their auditors for non-audit services may give auditors an economic incentive to compromise their independence, resulting in lower quality audit and thus lower quality earnings. This study examines the relation between non-audit services and informativeness of earnings components with a focus on discretionary accruals. Accruals allow managers to communicate their private and inside information and thereby improve the ability to reflect underlying economic value. However, managers could use accruals opportunistically that should seriously undermine the informativeness of reported earnings. This study examines whether there is a different linkage between non-audit service and pricing of discretionary accruals. Further, discretionary accruals of non-audit service clients have a different association with future profitability (future earnings and cash-flows). The findings indicate that the association between stock return (future profitability) and discretionary accruals is smaller for non-audit service clients. The findings remain robust in a number of sensitivity tests including the analyses controlling for the effect of firm characteristics, auditor types and sign of discretionary accruals. Overall, the results of this study support the recent concern of regulators about the possible impairment of auditor independence that would be triggered by the provision of non-audit services to the audit service clients.