연구개발비의 집약도 및 자본화에 영향을 미치는 요인

This study examines the recent R&D practices of Korean firms in terms of R&D intensity and capitalization ratio over time and across firms, and then investigates a firm’s long-term growth potential and its myopic earnings management propensity as factors to affect R&D intensity and capitalization ratio. A firm’s growth potential is measured with lagged market to book ratio, and earnings management propensity with the three concurrent variables, the debt ratio, operating income ratio, and discretionary accrual. The higher the debt ratio, the lower operating income ratio, and the higher discretionary accrual, earnings management propensity is presumed to be higher. The sample consists of firms listed on the Korean Stock Exchange with all the necessary data available, totaling 4,974 firm-years over the past 14 years from 1994 to 2007. The dependent variables, R&D intensity and capitalization ratio have limited values from 0 to 1. Thus, the effect of the growth potential variable and the earnings management propensity variables on them is estimated mainly using the ordinal logistic regression method. Descriptive results show that although the R&D intensity of the firms has increased over time in general, the conservative revision of R&D accounting rules in accordance with the international accounting standards in 1999 appears to have a negative effect on that increasing trend temporarily. Further, R&D capitalization ratio has steeply declined after the R&D accounting rule revision. In addition, while R&D intensity and capitalization ratio exhibit large variations across industries, both of them are significantly higher in high-technology industries than others. The main part of the results provides that both R&D intensity and capitalization ratio are affected positively by a firm’s growth potential, indicating that growth potential is rationally reflected in a firm’s decision on R&D investments and their capitalization. The debt ratio and discretionary accrual are found to affect R&D intensity negatively, but operating income ratio is found to affect it positively. This indicates that firms with higher earnings management propensity tend to make less R&D investments. In addition, the debt ratio and discretionary accrual are found to affect R&D capitalization positively, but operating income ratio is found to affect it negatively. This indicates that firms with higher earnings management propensity tend to capitalize R&D expenditures. Overall, these results suggest that R&D intensity and capitalization are determined rationally in light of a firm’s long-term growth potential, but at the same time they seem to be adjusted at discretion for a firm’s myopic earnings management. This study would aid not only in identifying prevalent accounting practices for R&D expenditures of Korean firms, but also in understanding firm-specific causes and motivations behind R&D investment and capitalization decisions, and thus is expected to help evaluate the usefulness of R&D information reported on the financial statements.