상장폐지 실질심사제도가 외부감사인 교체에 미치는 영향

"Substantial Investigation System of Delisting", which was implemented by The Korea Exchange at February 2009, focuses on substantial suitability as a listed company such as continuity of corporate management, transparency, financial information and business status, as well as existing formal delisting standards. As an implementation of the new investigation system, higher risks of delisting than before motivate marginal companies on profitability to management their earnings discretionally. However, according to guidelines for substantial investigation, the listed companies which are detected accounting fraud are subject to investigation of delisting automatically. Therefore, the managements of companies, which increase their reported earnings discretionally, want to change external auditors from high-quality to lower-quality to diminish detective risks. This study examined empirically the effect of substantial investigation system of delisting on auditors changes of listed companies. Specifically, this study performed logistic regression analysis using 9,926 firm-year samples from 2005 to 2010 whether listed companies change their auditors from high-quality to lower-quality to decrease detective risks for accounting standard violations after implementation of new investigation system. The results show that auditor changes to lower-quality auditors are increased after implementation of new system compared with previous delisting system. This finding is stronger for marginal companies on profitability and KOSDAQ market companies which have relatively low quality of accounting information. This study could provide empirical evidence of need for reform the rules of auditors change to establish substantial investigation system of delisting successfully.