earticle

영어

In 1990s, corporate governance system in Korea could not meet the global standards and it might be one of the main reasons of the Asian financial crisis in 1997. In response to the crisis, Korean government and companies are required to adopt enhanced corporate governance rules, improvement of transparency in accounting system, strengthening of legal protection of shareholder rights, and market- oriented economic policies. As a result, Regulation on Securities Listing was reformed to listed companies to have at least a quarter of outside directors out of board of directors. Thereafter, the Commercial Law of Korea requires “large” companies (assets greater than two trillion won) to have majority of outside directors and small companies (assets are between 100 billion and two trillion won) to have at least a quarter of outside directors. The literature on outside directors in foreign countries is numerous but there are few in Korea since the history of the mandatory outside director rule is short and it is not easy to get detailed data. We investigate the determinants of excess outside directors over the minimum requirement and the effect of outside directors on firm value in Korea. Especially, we analyze the issues with the Chaebol variable which is a unique characteristic in Korea. We include companies listed in KOSDAQ as well as in KOSPI from 2002 to 2010, as a result, our sample is composed of 8,831 firm-year observations. We found that small companies whose assets are less than 100 billion won, companies having greater board size and larger R&D expenses are more likely to have excess outside directors. Chaebol companies are also more likely to nominate excess outside directors. Our main empirical results show that excess outside directors do not affect firm value (measured by Tobin’s Q) in the whole sample. However, we observed mixed results in sub-samples. KOSPI companies show positive relationship between excess outside directors and firm value, on the other hand, it does not hold for KOSDAQ companies. The results imply that the benefits from excess outside directors exceed the costs for KOSPI companies in Korea. Further, the excess outside directors enhance firm value especially for Chaebol companies than non-Chaebol companies. We check robustness of our main results with panel model. After controlling firm fixed effect, we found the results are very similar to those with pooled OLS model. Especially, the relationship between excess outside directors and firm value (Tobin’s Q) still holds even after controlling firm fixed effect. Based on the results of our study, one of main implications is that companies should make an effort to improve corporate governance level to meet investors’ requests. Further, government agency also try to develop corporate governance system. For example, under current Commercial Law in Korea, small companies (assets are below 100 billion won) do not have to nominate outside directors. However, the need of monitoring for those companies would be more than necessary. Thus, it is necessary to evaluate and decide in the near future whether outside director system is helpful or not for small companies as well as investors. This study shows that excess outside directors affect firm value positively. One of limitations is that we do not consider the career and characteristics of outside directors. It might make some bias in our test results. If several factors about the career and characteristics of outside directors are included in the future research, it will make better and rich results.

한국어

본 연구는 2002년부터 2010년까지 우리나라 유가증권 상장기업 및 코스닥 상장기업을 대상으로 법정 기준을 초과하여 사외이사를 선임하는 기업들의 공통된 특성을 살펴보고, 사외이사 초과선임비율이 기업가치에 미치는 영향을 분석하였다. 사외이사 초과선임의 결정요인으로는 자산규모 2조 원 미만인 유가증권 상장기업이거나 자산이 1천억 원 미만인 코스닥 상장기업인 경우, 이사회의 규모가 크고 연구개발비 지출이 많을수록, 설립기간이 오래되거나, 당기순손실을 기록한 기업일수록, 그리고 30대 기업집단에 소속되어 있을수록 사외이사를 초과선임하는 경향이 있음을 발견하였다. 사외이사 초과선임비율이 기업가치에 미치는 영향을 분석한 결과, 사외이사 초과선임의 효과가 유가증권 상장기업과 코스닥 상장기업에 다르게 작용함을 확인할 수 있었다. 유가증권 상장기업의 경우 추가적인 사외이사의 선임이 기업가치와 양(+)의 관계를 갖는데 반해 코스닥 상장기업은 사외이사 초과선임비율과 기업가치 사이에 유의한 관계가 관찰되지 않았다. 한편 30대 기업집단 소속기업의 경우 사외이사를 초과선임할 때 비소속기업에 비해 추가적인 기업가치의 증가를 결과하는 것이 확인되었다. 또한, 강건성 검정을 위해 고정효과 패널모형을 이용 분석한 결과에서도 사외이사 초과선임이 기업가치에 유의적인 양의 관계를 보였다. 이러한 결과는 투자자들이 최소요건보다 강화된 지배구조를 요구한다는 점을 인식하고 기업들은 능동적으로 지배구조의 개선을 위해 노력해야함을 시사하며, 코스닥 상장기업의 경우 현재 자산규모 1천억 미만의 회사에 대해서는 사외이사 선임에 대해 규정하고 있지 않으나, 동 제도에 대해서도 면밀한 검토가 필요하다고 하겠다