미청구공사가 신용등급에 미치는 영향

To secure competitiveness in the order-made production industry, construction contracts have been disclosed with incomplete information. Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering reported a large loss by converting unclaimed receivables into expenses in 2015. Accordingly, external information users demanded the transparent and reliable disclosure of construction contract information. Therefore, regulators have implemented the improvement plan to increase accounting transparency and reduce information asymmetry in the order-made production industry since 2016. Unbilled receivables have decreased since the implementation of the improvement plan. However, unbilled receivables have recently been on the rise again. In particular, due to the nature of the order-made production industry, which is sensitive to the international situation, the potential risk of unbilled receivables can be realized at any time. Accordingly, credit rating agencies reflect unbilled receivables in the evaluation of the financial structure of the order-made production industry. Therefore, this study examined whether credit rating agencies differentially recognize unbilled receivables after the improvement plan was implemented compared to before the implementation. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the larger the unbilled receivables after the implementation of the improvement plan compared to before the implementation, the significantly lower the credit rating. And the results of the analysis using various unbilled receivables proxies were the same as the main hypothesis verification results. In addition, the results of analysis using bond ratings and commercial paper ratings were also similar to the hypothesis verification results. This means that the larger the unbilled receivables after the implementation of the improvement plan, the more negatively the credit rating agency recognizes. Most previous researches analyzed earnings management using construction contract accounting, the stock market’s reaction to unbilled receivables, and the role of auditors in the period before the implementation of the improvement plan. In particular some previous researches analyzed the effectiveness of the improvement plan by verifying whether accounting transparency has improved and information asymmetry has decreased since the implementation of the improvement plan. However, this study is different in that it verified whether credit rating agencies differentially recognize construction contract information after implementation compared to before implementation of the improvement plan. Moreover, there is an additional contribution in that it has verified how a credit rating agency with professional analysis capabilities for the industry are using detailed and expanded construction contract information since the implementation of the improvement plan.