연결실체의 복잡성으로 인한 재무보고 지연에 관한 연구
An Empirical Analysis of Financial Reporting Delay due to Complexity of Consolidation entity
강내철(홍익대학교); 김성환(한양여자대학)
47호, 281~307쪽
초록
기업이 영위하는 사업의 복잡성은 재무보고시차에 영향을 미치는 중요한 요인이 된다. 사업의 복잡성은 대개 기업이 속한 산업의 성격에 의해 결정되지만 기업이 영위하는 사업영역의 수도 중요한 영향을 미친다. 기업의 사업영역이 단일 부문만으로 구성된 경우는 드물고 다양하게 분화된 사업부문을 통해 서로 다른 사업을 영위한다. 사업의 분화는 흔히 출자관계를 통해 지배하는 자회사를 통해 이루어진다. 따라서 기업이 자신뿐 아니라 다수의 자회사들을 거느린 경우 서로 다른 업종을 영위하는 자회사의 수는 연결실체의 복잡성을 증가시키는 요인으로 작용 할 수 있다. 연결재무보고 환경에서 수행된 외국의 연구들은 연결실체의 복잡성이 재무보고의 적시성에 미치는 영향을 모형에 고려하고 있다(Ashton et al. 1987; Ashton et al. 1989; Carslaw and Kaplan 1991; Bamber et al. 1993). 그러나 우리나라의 연구(김평기 1996; 나종길·최기호 2004)에서는 연결실체의 복잡성이 재무보고 적시성에 미치는 영향이 고려되지 않았다. 이것은 우리나라의 개별재무제표 중심의 재무보고환경과 관련이 있다. 그러나 우리나라도 국제적 정합성을 갖추기 위해 1999년 이후에는 개별재무제표에서도 연결실체의 경영성과가 반영될 수 있도록 회계기준이 개정되었다. 즉 지분법을 적용하여 피투자회사의 경영성과를 투자회사의 경영성과에 합산하여 보고하게 되었다. 따라서 지분법이 적용된 이후에는 연결실체의 복잡성은 재무보고시차에 중요한 영향을 미쳤을 것이다. 본 연구는 국내의 재무보고환경에서 재무보고시차를 설명하는 요소로 연결재무보고 문제에 주목하고 그 관련성을 규명하고자 한다. 이를 확인하기 위해 332개 연결재무제표 작성기업의 최근 5년간의 회계자료를 실증 분석하였고, 그 결과 연결실체 내에서 자회사의 비중이 높을수록, 자회사의 수가 많을수록 재무보고가 유의적으로 지연되는 것을 확인할 수 있었다. 즉 연결실체의 복잡성이 재무보고 지연요소로 작용함을 확인할 수 있었다. 향후 국내의 재무보고환경은 연결재무보고 체제로의 전환이 예정되어 있다. 그 동안 연결재무정보의 우월성에도 불구하고 현실적 문제를 이유로 그 전환이 미루어져 왔는데 가장 대표적인 걸림돌이 재무보고 지연에 대한 우려였다. 그 동안 연결재무보고 체제로의 전환에 따른 재무보고가 지연되는 정도를 체계적으로 분석한 연구가 거의 없었던 점을 감안할 때 본 연구는 이 문제에 관한 실증적 분석결과를 제시한 점에 의의가 있다.
Abstract
This paper reports empirical evidence on determinants of financial reporting lag which is defined as the number of days between year-end and the date of auditor's reports. The financial reporting delay may affect timeliness of accounting information disclosure which may distort the market reaction. This concern has motivated us to study the determinants of financial reporting delay. According to prior researches, financial report can be delayed by firm size, industry, audit opinion, audit technology, internal control quality, bad news, and new client-auditor relationship. The financial reporting lag can be affected by a firm's operational complexity. The operational complexity is generally determined by the characteristics of industry, but also is significantly affected by the numbers of separate department in which the firm operates. Firms generally operate separate and different business through variously differentiated department. The differentiation of business often can be achieved by investment in subsidiary companies. Therefore the number of subsidiary companies which operate different business each other can have an important effect on operational complexity. The more complex the firm's operation, the more effort for auditor to get sufficient audit evidence. However firms report separate financial statement first and then report consolidated financial statement with sufficient time lag in Korean GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles). Because the Korean firms are not urged of timely financial reporting of consolidated entity, no study in Korea directly considered the impact of operational complexity of consolidation entity on financial reporting delay. However, according to the revised Korean GAAP of 1998, Korean firms are required to apply an equity method accounting in the investments of subsidiaries. So ideally the parent firm's earnings have to be same with consolidated earnings. Because of that changes, the firms has to spend more time to prepare the financial statement than pre-1998 GAAP. The more complex the firm's reporting entity is, the longer period is need to accomplish the preparing, auditing and reporting the financial statements. So we focused on operational complexity of consolidation entity and tried to find the evidence on the reason why the financial reporting is delayed in Korean financial reporting environment. The operational complexity is defined as the characteristics of an industry the firm's operation is included and the number of divisions the firm is operating. So the number of operation division will influence the complexity of firm's accounting entity, eventually inducing the financial reporting delay. The Korean firms are now adapting K-IFRS (Korean international financial reporting standards) which change firms' reporting environment from separate and individual reporting to consolidated reporting. So we investigate whether financial reporting lag will be increased according to the introduction of K-IFRS. To examine the effect of operational complexity on financial report lags, we test following hypotheses. i) the financial reporting delay is related with whether or not the parent company which has subsidiaries should apply the equity method in their separate financial statements, and ii) the financial reporting delay is related with the extent that the consolidated financial statements are rely on subsidiary companies financial statements. If operational complexity is related with financial report lags, consolidated financial reporting will need longer reporting delay. We expect that two proxies of operational complexity, the size of subsidiary firms and the number of subsidiary firms, will be related with longer reporting delay. We tried to identify the reason why the financial reporting is delayed and whether the complexity of consolidated entity affects financial report lag. We investigated 352 firms listed on Korean stock market from 2001 to 2005 fiscal year which report consolidated financial statements. We could assured that there exist a relation between the financial report lag and the complexity of consolidated entity. Also we find that a firm which has a group of subsidiary company need relatively longer reporting delay due to application of equity method accounting to its investment in separate financial reporting and the size and the number of subsidiaries are positively related with financial reporting delay in uni-variate comparison and multi-variate regression. Our findings suggest that there is a possibility of increase in lag of financial reporting when the K-IFRS is putted into practice.
- 발행기관:
- 한국공인회계사회
- 분류:
- 회계학