董事的会计师事务所工作背景与企业业绩预告质量——来自中国资本市场的经验证据

CPA Firm Working Background of Directors and Corporate Earnings Forecast——The Evidence from the Chinese Capital Market

基于2004-2012年的中国上市公司业绩预告数据,考察了董事的会计师事务所工作背景对企业业绩预告行为的影响。研究发现:董事的会计师事务所工作背景显著提高了企业自愿发布业绩预告的意愿以及业绩预告的及时性和精确度;这种积极作用仅体现在强制性业绩预告样本中,而在自愿发布业绩预告的样本中表现得并不明显。该结果说明,董事会成员的会计师事务所工作背景影响了董事会职能的发挥,而且这种影响受到了外部监管机制的约束。

Using a sample of management forecasts released by A-share listed companies between 2004 and 2012,this paper examines the impact of directors’ CPA firm working background on a company’s earnings forecast behavior. We find that there are significantly positive correlations between director working background indices and willingness of a corporate’s voluntary issuing an earnings forecast,timeliness and specificity of management earnings forecasts. These results show that directors’ CPA firm working background has a positive impact on corporate forecasts. After dividing our sample into mandatory earnings forecasts and voluntary earnings forecasts, we conclude that the significantly positive correlations between director working background indices and timeliness and specificity of management forecasts only exist in the subsample of mandatory earning forecast, and they do not exist in the subsample of voluntary management earnings forecast.It means that the external supervision mechanism promotes the effectiveness of the board of directors.