监事会治理有效吗——基于内部审计师兼任监事会成员的视角

Research on Governance Effects of the Internal Auditors as Members of the Board of Supervisors

监事会应在企业财务监督中发挥重要作用,但是现有研究抑或对监事会的监督作用缺乏应有的关注,抑或发现监事会"有名无实",其原因包括监事会专业知识不够、获取信息途径少、独立性低等方面。文章基于内部审计人员兼任监事会成员的视角,采用2010-2015年上市公司全样本数据和倾向值得分配对获取的数据,检验内部审计人员兼任监事会成员的治理效应。研究发现,内部审计人员兼任监事会成员能显著抑制公司盈余管理行为。进一步研究发现,这种抑制作用更多发生在股权制衡度高的公司和非国有上市公司中。同时,基于不同层级的审计人员和兼任监事会成员类型进行实证检验,结果表明相比于非审计总监担任监事会成员,审计总监兼任监事会成员更能抑制盈余管理活动,并且无论是担任监事会主席还是非监事会主席,抑制作用均显著存在。本研究丰富了监事会和内部审计治理机制的学术文献,也为完善中国上市公司监事会改革提供了新的启示。

According to the Chinese company law and corporate governance standards, the board of supervisors should play an im- portant role in the financial supervision of enterprises. However, the existing research either lacked deserved attention to the role of the board of supervisors, or found the board of supervisors ＂nomi- nal＂. The reasons lie in the board of supervisors＇ poor professional knowledge, inaccessible to enterprises＇ information and low inde- pendence. Based on the data of listed companies from 2010 to 2015, in view of the internal audit staff as members of the board of super- visors, we simultaneously use the total sample data and propensity score matching method （PSM） to examine the governance effect of the internal auditors as members of the board of supervisors. The study found that the internal auditors as members remarkably inhib- it corporate earnings management. Further research has found that this inhibitory effect is more likely to happen in companies with high equity balance and in non-state-owned companies. At the same time, we conducted a series of empirical tests based on different levels of auditors and different types of the members of the board of supervisors. The results show that compared to the companies with other internal audit staff concurrently holding a position in the board of supervisors, the role of the internal audit director to curb earnings management activities is more significant, whether the internal auditors be the chairman or non-chairman members. This research enriches the academic literature about the board of super- visors and the internal audit management mechanism, and at the same time, it also provides a new enlightenment for perfecting the reform of the board of supervisors of Chinese listed companies.