분기이익 조정에 있어서 재량적발생액과 실물활동의 관계

It has been reported that firms manage earnings to avoid losses or achieve target earnings. The current study investigates whether the degrees of manipulation in quarterly earnings vary by estimating discretionary accruals and real activities. Similar to the prior studies, the results exhibit that discretionary accruals are positive and high in the first quarter but negative and low in the fourth quarter which implies that the degree of earnings management in the first quarter is more severe than that in the fourth quarter. Among the real activity earnings manipulation, price discounts or lenient credit terms that affect abnormal CFO are high in the first quarter but low in the fourth quarter. Real activity earnings manipulation through over production is not found to be severe, however evidence exists to suggest that real activity earnings manipulation by reducing DE in the fourth quarter is higher than in the first quarter. The results of analysis which compares discretionary accruals and real activity earnings manipulation display that there exists no evidence that firms are using real activities to compensate the low level of discretionary accruals in the fourth quarter. However the evidence suggests that firms use discretionary accruals and real activities simultaneously to manage the first quarter earnings. The variation of quarterly earnings manipulation by using discretionary accruals and real activities is a more common practice in loss firms compared to profit firms. These results suggest that external auditors‘ audit services play an important role in suppressing firms' earnings manipulation and thus a higher level of external auditors' assurance is required to enhance the reliability of the quarterly financial statements.