계속기업특기사항 기업의 재무보고특성

This paper investigates the relationship between the unqualified opinions of going- concern(GC) uncertainty explanatory paragraph firms and their financial reporting characteristics such as earnings management by analysing the audit reports of the period covering the years from 1999 to 2010. The financial reporting characteristics are proxied by discretionary accruals measured by Kothari et al.(2005) model, real earnings management activities by Cohen et al.(2008) model, and accruals quality by McNicols(2002) model. The focus is an analysis of whether the accruals earnings management(AEM) and real earnings activities(RAM) of firms in the prior or current period issued GC opinions are related with the GC firms. Because GC firms are in serious financial distress, their financial reporting characteristics and their accounting choice practices are important for investors to understand these firms’real sustainability. Findings are as follows. First, GC firms issued the prior periods show aggressive accounting, while the accruals quality is negatively significant in the current period. This result means GC firms issued prior period are managing earnings by using both discretionary accruals not real earnings management. Second, earnings management by using discretionary accruals for GC firms issued prior period is larger than the current period, but GC firms issued current period is negatively significant related with real earnings management activities. Third, the accruals quality of GC firms is rather lower in the prior year than in the current year. In summary, GC firms issued in the previous year choose a high level of earnings management by using more discretionary accruals than issued in the current year, which means there is a complementary relationship between AEM and RAM in the current period. Meanwhile GC firms issued in the current year take a higher level of real earnings management than issued in the previous year, which represents substitutive relationship between RAM and AEM in previous year. This shows consistent results with the extant research of Zang(2012). These results reflect the manager's aggressive accounting choices for GC firms that they sacrificed firms' future performance for an immediate tentative cash flow improvement and avoided GC opinion from auditors. We have consistent results even after taking measure to control the global financial crisis years starting from 2008 to 2010, which means no change the results for economic impact on manager's aggressive accounting choice behaviour for the GC firms. The results in this study would provide accounting information users with a good understanding of the GC firms' accounting choice behaviour and its implied financial reporting quality. The auditors who issue GC opinions would also help investors by signalling the market in advance for their potential going-concern uncertainties of GC firms. This study also contributes in generalizing the results by way of using the twelve years period of stable data for an evaluation of GC firms' earnings management and financial reporting quality in Korea.