지역농협의 조합장 권한축소가 이익조정에 미치는 영향

This study examines whether there is a difference in the earnings management behavior of cooperatives when there is a change in the internal management structure that reduces the authority for financial affairs of the president, the CEO of the Agricultural Cooperative, and strengthens the role of the standing director in the organization with high expertise. Agricultural cooperatives are small organizations, so there is a high possibility that the president’s influence will be very large. The samples used in this study are 4,148 cooperative-year samples from 2015 to 2018. As an earnings management variable for the cooperative’s financial business, the discretionary allowance for bad debts suggested in previous studies (Kanagaretnam et al. 2010a, 2010b) was used. The results of the empirical analysis are as follows. First of all, the Agricultural Cooperatives confirmed that the higher the reported profit, the more earnings management through loan loss allowance. Second, in the case of cooperatives that introduced a standing director who receives the authority for financial affairs from the head of the cooperative and carries out the business, it was confirmed that the higher the reported profit level, the less earnings management was performed. The moderating effect on earnings management following the introduction of a standing director showed a significant result when the head of the cooperative worked full-time rather than part-time. This is interpreted to mean that the role of standing directors in earnings management is greater when the president of the cooperative is full-time. This case can be seen as an example of empirically confirming the effectiveness of corporate governance restructuring measures by using earnings management behavior.