기업의 경영전략에 따른 보수적 회계처리의 차이에 관한 실증연구

Based on the business strategy typology suggested by Miles and Snow (1978, 2003), this study examines the association between a firm’s business strategy and accounting conservatism. We investigate whether a firm’s business strategy affects the accounting conservatism and predict that firms close to prospector type indicate lower level of accounting conservatism than those close to analyzer type or defender type. Further, this study also examines whether the relationship between a firm’s business strategy and accounting conservatism is adjusted by such level of information asymmetry related variables as (i) the management ownership, (ii) stock return daily volatility or (iii) analyst forecast dispersion. While many prior studies have investigated the factors affecting the accounting conservatism, a firm’s business strategy may play a certain role for such conservatism since it is more comprehensive and generalizable across industries than those specific individual variables previously considered. A firm’s business strategy has the implication of 'the tone at the top' affecting overall management factors such as organizational structure, culture, business direction, etc. and, thus it provides an even broader understanding of the factors that are ex ante determinants of accounting conservatism. According to Miles and Snow (1978, 2003), prospector focuses on innovation, pursues new products or geographically new markets and is more likely to be aggressive. Therefore, prospector has high growth potential, long-term stock incentive schemes and high level of capital needs, which are negatively associated with the level of accounting conservatism, and unstable than those close to analyzer group or defender group), which is consistent with our anticipation. This result might be interpreted as the top management of the firms close to prospector group tend to actively take the risk and uncertainty and, thus the level of accounting conservatism of such prospector group would be lower than other groups. The results of (Hypothesis 2) test show that the negative (-) association between a firm’s business strategy and accounting conservatism would be both decreased (i.e., accounting conservatism goes up) when (i) shareholding ratio by the management goes up and (ii) when the level of information asymmetry becomes higher. Such results could be interpreted in a way that in the case of higher management ownership, the interests of management and shareholders may be aligned and the management more focus on the long-term performance and select accounting treatments more conservatively. It is also interpreted as the management tend to select more conservative accounting methods in response to the investors' demand under higher information asymmetry situation. Our study is important since it helps provide a better understanding of the factors affecting accounting conservatism (i.e., comprehensive underlying factor).