우리나라 證券分析家의 意思決定패턴에 관한 試驗的 硏究-投資種目選定過程의 Verbal Protocol分析을 中心으로-

An Exploratory Study on the Decision Processes of Korean Professional Financial Analysts-A Verbal Protocol Analysis on the Investment Screening Decision-

Financial reporting is to provide information that is useful in investment and credit decision. This objective requires a means of understanding the usefulness of information : roles and effects of information in decision making process. This article is to develop a pattern that identifies the decision making processes and strategies of Korean financial analysts who are screening prospective investment. A company listed in the second section of Korea Stock Exchange is selected for this study. The professional analysts were provided with relevant materials, for the analysis of the company, that reflected the magnitude and the types of information they normaly review in the evaluation process. They were asked to verbalize whatever came to mind during their evaluation of those materials. The transcripts of the verbalization, called protocols, formed the basis of analysis in this study. After their evaluation, this study asks the participants to list additional information needed and to recall the highlights of evaluation. The methodology employed is protocol analysis which identifies the decision making processes, the decision rules and the types of knowledge that are required to perform the task. This study follows the procedures of protocol analysis suggested by Bouwman et. al.(1987) such as collecting protocols, coding protocols, tabulating code frequencies, defining protocol episodes, classifying goals, preparing episode summary. The protocols were collected from four korean financial analysts whose average year of experiences was 14. Frequency table of activity code indicates the participants devoted most of their time to reasoning(46%) and information examination and reading(34%). A tabulation of the usage of information item codes suggests selective usage of information and the similiarity among analysts in information usage. They mentioned information items in the range of 13 and 32 items and frequently used items included information about products(23.5%), financial statements(33.4%) and the associated performance ratio(15.7%) and stock markets(15.0%). Balance sheet, income statement and associated ratio accounts for 46.7% of information usage. Selective usage of information items and similiarity in information usage indicates that the analysts developed a checklist and targeted those items. In the examination of individual screening behavior, this study selects an prototype analyst, analyst S3, and one analyst(S4) whose episode summary differed the most from that of S3. S3 has an experience over 13 years and spends 63 minuites in completing the task along with 825 words and 37 episodes. The decision process of S3 starts with familiarizing with the company by checklist and explores the themes and hypotheses triggered by the familiarization. Therefore, his decision process is characterized by a checklist process, thereby indicating that he is applying some kind of image or template of how an electronic company behaves in current Korean economy and stock markets. This template is the product of experience and task specific knowledge. S4, who has an experience over 14 years, completed the task with 27 episodes and 904 words. He also familiarized himself with the company and explored and developed themes, while he built a negative case for the company during the familiarization and searched for the reasons to reject the company during the exploring and reasoning stages. In the exploring and reasoning process, he focused on the factors of stock markets (liquidity, price level, investor preference, etc.) instead of line of business. The information items additionally requested by the participants included the information on existing products, product development plan, diversification plan, managers and plan on capital increase(especially by issuing gratis stock). These requests suggest present financial reporting in Korea is not providing sufficient information on segment reporting, forecasts and management pol