내부회계관리제도 취약점 및 상위직급감사인 감사투입시간비율과 주가폭락위험의 관련성

Internal Control Weakness and Senior-Level Auditor’s Input Hour Ratio, and Their Relations with Stock Price Crash Risk

선행연구에서는 회계불투명성이 높을수록(Hutton et al. 2009) 또는 내부통제가 취약한 기업(Chen et al. 2017)의 사후적 주가폭락위험이 더 높고, 계속감사기간이 길거나(Callen and Fang 2017) 산업전문감사인(Robin and Zhang 2015)인 감사인일 경우 주가폭락위험이 더 낮다고 보고하였다. 이 연구들은 여러 기업특성이나 감사인특성의 주가폭락위험 관련성을 조사한 것이다. 본 연구는 기업특성(내부통제 취약성)과 감사인특성(상위직급감사인의 감사투입시간비율)을 함께 고려하여 사후적 주가폭락위험 관련성을 조사한다. 감사인특성과 주가폭락위험 관련성을 조사한 위 연구들은 주로 감사인 적격성이나 주어진 상황조건에 대한 조사들이다. 본 연구는 감사인특성 중 감사투입인력배합을 통한 감사인의 대응 관점에 초점을 맞춘다. 구체적으로, PCAOB(2015), 류승우 등(2015), 최승욱 등(2016)과 같은 감사관련 문헌 및 선행연구들은 감사파트너와 매니저 등 상위직급감사인의 감사투입시간비율이 크면 높은 감사품질지표가 된다고 설명하였다. 상위직급감사인의 감사투입시간비율은 주어진 상황조건이 아니라 감사인 대응행동 차이를 나타낸다. 이러한 점을 고려하여 본 연구는 감사인특성 항목으로 상위직급감사인인 감사파트너 및 등록회계사의 감사투입시간비율을 사용한다. 연구 결과, 국내 상장기업들의 경우에도 내부회계관리제도 취약점을 보고한 기업은 사후적 주가폭락위험과 관련성이 더 높았으나, 감사파트너 및 등록회계사 감사투입시간비율은 사후적 주가폭락위험과 관련성이 유의하지 않았다. 그러나 일부 주가폭락위험 대용치 경우에, 내부회계관리제도가 취약한 기업은 상위직급 감사인 감사투입시간비율이 높을수록 사후적 주가폭락위험도 낮아졌다. 다소 약한 실증증거이기는 하지만, 위 조사결과는 주가폭락위험과 관련하여 감사인특성과 기업특성을 동시에 고려할 필요가 있으며, 또한 감사인특성과 관련하여 감사인의 능력과 상황조건 뿐만 아니라 감사인의 행동 차이 측면도 함께 고려할 필요가 있음을 나타낸다.

“Crash risk is a large negative market-adjusted stock returns (Hutton, Marcus, and Tehranian, 2009) and is ”an undesirable characteristic of a firm for investors (Chen, Chan, Dong, and Zhang 2017).” Also, “the stock price crash occurs when accumulated negative firm-specific information is suddenly released (Hutton et al. 2009). Sudden transmission of cumulative negative information is combined results led by poor accounting quality and low audit quality. In the same contexts, previous studies have examined whether stock price crash is related to the corporate or auditor characteristics. In particular, with respect to corporate characteristics, the internal control quality (Chen et al. 2017), governance effectiveness (Andreou, Antoniou, Horton, and Louca 2016), accounting opacity measured by discretionary accruals (Hutton et al. (Kim and Zhang 2015; Kim, Moon, and Choi), the real earnings management (Francis, Hasan, and Li 2016; Lee, Lee, and Choo 2017), accounting comparability (Kim and Zhang 2015; Cho, Moon, and Choi 2015) are related to stock price crash risks. Meanwhile, with respect to auditor characteristics, industry specialist auditors (Robin and Zhang 2015), auditor tenures (Callen and Fang 2017), and auditor size and auditor changes (Lee 2017) are related to stock price crash risks. This study extends the above studies by examining the relations with subsequent stock price crash risks by employing corporate characteristics (internal control vulnerability) and the characteristics of auditors (the ratio of audit hours of upper level officers), together. Moreover, we note that previous studies with respect to auditor characteristics and stock price crash risks are focusing on items constituting the given auditor competence or auditor conditions. This study focuses on the aspect of the auditor behaviors in response in relation to the characteristics of the auditor. Our study is contrasted with them since our work is focusing on auditor behaviors that the auditor determines. Specifically, the US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) (2015) explains that involvements of the senior-level auditors, such as the audit partner or managers, could be an audit quality indicator. In fact, Ryu et al. (2015) and Choi et al. (2016) reported empirical evidences that the higher ratio of audit hours spent by senior-level auditors, such as audit partners and registered accountants, the better audit quality. The ratio of audit hours of the senior-level auditor are not an given conditions, but showing differential auditor behaviors according to the audit procedure determined by the auditor. In this study, we use audit hours ratio of the senior-level auditor (i.e. audit partners and registered accountants) as the auditor characteristics variables. Final samples are for three year periods from 2014 when the external audit laws started to require disclosure of audit hours data by auditor grade in the audit reports, and are 3,897 firm-years, after excluding the missing data samples. The results of this study show that firms reporting internal control weaknesses are more likely to be significantly related to subsequent stock price crash risks, however, their relations with audit input hour ratio of audit partners and registered accountants are not significant. Meanwhile, higher audit input hour ratio of audit partners and registered accountants are significantly decreasing subsequent stock crash risks of the companies reporting internal control weaknesses (although their significances vary across the stock price crash proxies). The results of our study suggest that it is necessary to consider both auditor and company characteristics with respect to stock price crash risks together (although they are some weak evidences), also, it needs to note auditor reacting behaviors as well as given conditions with respect to auditor characteristics.