非正式制度的治理作用——基于儒家文化对会计信息可比性影响的实证研究

Corporate Governance of Informal Institutional Mechanism:The Effect of Confucian Culture on the Comparability of Accounting Information

随着市场经济的不断发展,会计信息的质量影响着投资者等信息使用者的决策有效性。作为重要的会计信息质量要求之一,如何提高会计信息可比性是一个值得研究的重要问题。选取沪深A股2010~2019年的上市公司为样本,从非正式制度视角考察儒家文化对会计信息可比性的影响。研究发现,公司受儒家文化影响越大,其会计信息可比性越高,这种影响通过缓解代理冲突进而作用于会计信息可比性,而且这种积极作用在外部监督水平低、未受外来文化冲击的公司表现更突出。进一步研究发现,儒家文化这类非正式制度作为一种互补治理机制,与公司治理机制相得益彰。此外,高管具有海外背景这一特质会削弱儒家文化对会计信息可比性的促进作用。

Accounting information quality plays an important role in decision making of the users of the information,such as investors and the like.As one of the important requirements of accounting information quality,the comparability of accounting information along with how to improve it has been an important accounting research topic.Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies for the period of 2010 to 2019,this study extends the literature on the association between Confucian culture and managerial decisions by examining the influence of Confucian culture on the comparability of accounting information.We employ hand-collected data to construct measures of Confucian culture and the comparability of accounting information,and document strong and robust evidence that Confucian culture is significantly positively associated with the comparability of accounting information in Chinese listed firms.The reason is that Confucian culture mitigates agency conflicts and thus lowers agency costs,which increases the comparability of accounting information.In addition,Confucian culture has a stronger positive effect on the comparability of accounting information among enterprises with a low level of external governance than among enterprises with a high level of external governance as well as among enterprises least affected by foreign culture than among enterprises most affected by foreign culture.In particular,the positive association between Confucian culture and the comparability of accounting information attenuates among enterprises employing senior executives with overseas experience.These results suggest that Confucian culture serves as a substitute for the standard corporate governance mechanism.