earticle

영어

In this study, we empirically examine the association between the level of personnel related to internal control over financial reporting(hereafter "ICFR") and properties of financial analysts' earnings forecasts. Based on prior studies showing that the level of human resource investment for ICFR might be proxy for quality of ICFR, this study also maintained quality of financial reporting will improve as the number of employees working for ICFR increases. Financial reporting quality of a firm percieved by financial analysts have the following components; quality of fiancial statements which are ouputs of financial information system and quality of financial information production system itself. The latter depends on quality of independent audit and ICFR. Thus, we investigate incremental information content of the level of personnel of ICFR for explaining cross-sectional variations in the properties of financial analysts' earnings forecasts after controlling discretionary accruals and audit quality. We provide the first empirical evidence whether the ICFR personnel data, which should be annually disclosed, are utilized by financial statement users represented by financial analysts. The previous finding that the level of ICFR personnel has significantly positive relationship with financial reporting quality does not necessarily imply that financial statement users actually use the publicly disclosed ICFR personnel data. We examine fianancial analysts use the ICFR personnel data for formulating their annual earnings forecasts. Our evidence will lend support the regulatory authority's rational behind the madatory disclosure requirements imposed on the ICFR personnel data. We found that as the level of ICFR personnel increases, the accuracy of analysts' earnings forecasts increases, and the number of analysts also increases. This results are obtained after controlling discretionary accruals and audit quality, thus suggest that the ICFR personnel number has ncremental information content explaining the properties of financial analysts earnings forecasts. In the additional analysis, we controlled the potential endogeneity between the ICFR personnel and financial analysts earnings forecasts and found qualitatively same results. Without controlling endogeneity, analysts' forecast dispersion did not show significant relation with the ICFR personnel data. However, analysts' forecast dispersion did show significantly negative relation with the ICFR personnel data after controlling endogeneity. We also did rank regression analysis and obtained evidence similar to the analysis with controlling endogeneity.

한국어

내부회계관리제도(internal control over financial reporting)는 기업의 재무보고 과정에 대하여 기업 스스로 모니터링을 함으로써, 회계정보의 신뢰성을 제고하고자 2005년에 도입된 제도이다. 본 연구는 기업들이 내부회계관리제도의 효과성(품질 향상)을 높이기 위하여 투입하는 내부회계관리 운영인력이 재무분석가의 이익예측 의사결정에 어떠한 역할을 하는지 검증한다. 분석을 위해 2005년 부터 2009년까지 유가증권 상장기업 중 재무분석가 이익예측치가 존재하는 기업을 대상으로 추출된 표본기업의 수(firm-year)는 523개를 이용하여 실증분석 하였다. 분석결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 내부회계관리 운영인력이 많을수록 재무분석가 이익예측 정확성은 높아지는 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 내부회계관리 운영인력이 많을수록 재무분석가 이익예측의 분산은 작아지는 것으로 나타났다. 셋째, 내부회계관리 운영인력이 많을수록 회계정보의 신뢰성이 높아져 재무분석가의 수가 많아지는 것으로 나타났다. 내부회계관리 운영인력이 많다는 것은 기업 활동의 포괄적인 부분에 내부통제 문제들을 다룰 수 있도록 확대된 투자가 이루어진 것으로 볼 수 있기 때문에 내부회계관리제도가 더욱 효과적임을 나타낸다. 따라서 내부회계관리제도가 효과적일수록 회계정보의 신뢰성이 높아져 정보의 비대칭이 감소한다고 볼 수 있다.