上市公司现金流操控动机选择研究

Research on Motivation Selection of Cash Flow Manipulation in Listed Companies

对现金流管理的研究是继盈余管理后兴起的管理层舞弊行为研究。在已有关于现金流操控阈值点研究的基础上,以2004年至2009年有分析师预测值的中国上市公司为样本,运用条件分布法,采用统计变量τ和z计算分布频率,并以分布频率直方图直观显示,分析上市公司在现金流量阈值点操控行为的动机选择。从统计结果和分布频率图可知,公司管理层对3个现金流阈值点确实存在不同选择。操控现金流微正的动机最强,即公司管理层更注重报告"微正"现金流量,其次是超越往年现金流量动机,而迎合分析师预测的动机最弱。研究还发现,管理层存在多重操控动机,即在控制已达到某一个阈值点之后,公司管理层更倾向达到另一个阈值点,存在"好上加好"的心理。

Cash flow management is a new research topic on management fraud after earnings management.Based on previous research on cash flow threshold manipulation,this paper examines the managers′selection on cash flow thresholds by conditional distribution method,using statistics τ and z to calculate frequency distribution and showing the results using histograms with the data from Chinese listed companies during 2004-2009,which include the analysts forecast value.According to the statistical results and distribution frequency histograms,it is found that there is hierarchy in the three thresholds selected by managers.That is the positive cash flow threshold is the most important,that is to say managers prefer to report the slight positive cash flow;the threshold of beyond previous period′s cash flow is the second,and the threshold of analyst forecast is hard to find.This study also finds that managesr have multiple manipulation motivations,that is to say the managers are prone to make efforts to exceed another threshold when they have manipulated the cash flow to meet one threshold,which can be regarded ＂to be better＂.