가족 구성원의 지분율과 통제수준이 기회주의적 이익조정에 미치는 영향에 대한 연구

Prior studies on family firms show mixed results in the association between family firms and earnings management or in the association between family firms and firm performance. On one hand, active participation of family members in firm operation promote effective monitoring and control over management, which lowers information asymmetry between shareholders and management. On the other hand, as controlling shareholders, family members have greater incentive to maximize private benefits at the cost of minority shareholders. In the light of unique characteristics of family firms, this study investigates the effect of family firms on earnings quality, focusing on participation of family members in management, control power of family members and family ownership. Using discretionary accruals as the measure of earnings quality, this study finds that earnings quality is higher for family firms than that of nonfamily firms, and there is a positive, but weak association between family ownership and earnings quality. The result also show that there is a positive relation between family member participation in management and earnings quality compared to that of non family member participation in management. However, when there is high control (both family ownership and family member participation in management), earnings quality is lower. The result implies that family members’ opportunistic behavior increase when their participation in firm operation is more than the optimal level. This study show that the effect of family members’ participation in management or family ownerships is context－specific. Thus, interested parties need to be aware of the importance of firm specific characteristics as well as corporate governance attributes to understand family business mechanism.