企业业绩补偿承诺与审计投入

The Impact of Compensation Commitment on Audit Effort

企业并购过程中,会通过签订业绩补偿承诺作为并购协议的补充契约,促成交易。近些年,我国企业并购过程中签订业绩补偿承诺的情况越来越多,本文以2012~2018年上市公司为样本,研究企业业绩补偿承诺对事务所审计资源投入决策的影响。结果发现,企业业绩补偿承诺增加审计工作时间,双向业绩承诺比单向业绩承诺的影响更为显著;企业业绩补偿承诺还会促进经验丰富审计师的增加,尤其是对大所的影响更为显著。进一步分析得到,企业业绩补偿承诺通过盈余管理和审计风险两条作用路径影响审计投入。研究从新的视角丰富了企业业绩补偿承诺行为的经济后果研究,也提供了会计师事务所在对并购公司进行审计时,会考虑业绩补偿承诺带来的审计风险,将其纳入行为决策的经验证据。

In the process of corporate mergers and acquisitions,the signing of performance compensation commitments is used as a supplementary contract to the merger agreement to facilitate transactions.In recent years,more and more performance compensation commitments have been signed in the process of corporate mergers and acquisitions in China.Using listed companies’data from 2012 to 2018 as samples,this paper studies the impact of corporate performance compensation commitment on the firm’s decision to invest in audit resources.The results reveal that such commitments increase audit work hours,and that the two-way performance commitments have a more significant impact than the one-way performance commitments.It is also found that such commitments also increase demand on experienced auditors,especially in major accounting firms.Further analysis shows that corporate performance compensation commitments affect audit investment through two functional paths of earnings management and audit risk.From a new perspective,it enriches the research on the economic consequences of corporate performance compensation commitments,and also provides empirical evidence that accounting firms will consider the audit risk brought by performance compensation commitments when auditing mergers and acquisitions and incorporate them into behavioral decision-making.