明察秋毫还是暗渡陈仓?--签字会计师个人经验对真实盈余管理的影响

“Discovering the minutest detail in everything”or“playing footsie with clients”?Effect of signing auditor′s experience on real earnings management

已有文献发现,经验丰富的签字会计师能够抑制客户的应计盈余管理行为。但管理层进行盈余管理的手段除了较为明显、监管风险较高的应计盈余管理外,还有较为隐蔽的真实盈余管理。那么,有经验的签字会计师在抑制客户应计盈余管理的同时是否会导致甚至诱使客户转而采用更多的真实盈余管理来实现盈余目标呢?文章利用中国A股上市公司公开数据以及手工搜集整理的签字会计师个人经验数据,考察了签字会计师个人经验对客户真实盈余管理的影响。结果发现,尽管两位签字会计师的平均一般经验对真实盈余管理的影响较弱,但签字会计师的平均行业经验、复核合伙人的一般经验及行业经验对于两类盈余管理均具有显著抑制作用。这表明,签字会计师尤其是复核合伙人的行业经验不仅对应计盈余管理具有很好的抑制作用,而且对于客户较为隐蔽的真实盈余管理行为也有一定的抑制作用。进一步研究表明,上述作用仅存在于非“四大”事务所中以及法律环境较好地区。本文的研究表明,签字会计师个人经验(尤其是行业经验)的提升确实在一定程度上有助于抑制客户的盈余管理行为、提高审计质量。这一研究,弥补了现有基于应计盈余管理角度相关文献的不足,有助于更全面地了解审计师个人经验对不同盈余管理的影响,从而更深入地理解审计师个人经验对审计质量的作用。

Prior literature has found that experienced signing auditors can constrain a client′s accrual-based earnings management,but management may achieve earnings goals through accrual-and real activity-based earnings management.Compared with accrual-based earnings management,real earnings management does not violate generally accepted accounting principles(GAAP),and distinguishing it from normal operating activities is difficult.Thus,real earnings management is less likely to face scrutiny from regulators.Firms may shift from accrual based to real earnings management when accrual-based earnings management is constrained.Therefore,such conclusion that the accumulation of auditor′s personal experience will lead to the improvement of audit quality cannot be drawn.Given that no public academic literature about the association between signing auditor′s experience and real earnings management exists,whether the personal experience of the signing auditor is positively related with audit quality remains unresolved.Using data from the Chinese stock market where the identities of signing auditors are disclosed in audit reports,we investigate the impact of the personal experience of signing auditors on a client′s real earnings management activity.We measure personal(general)experience of signing auditors by the number of audit reports the auditor has signed and the number of years the auditor has worked as a signing auditor.We further use the number of audit reports issued by the auditor in a specific industry and the number of years as a signing auditor in a specific industry to measure his/her industry experience.Following prior studies,we consider the abnormal levels of cash flow from operations,discretionary expenses,and production costs to study the level of real activity manipulations.We compute a single variable(RM)by combining the three individual real earnings management variables.For comparison,we also examine the impact of signing auditor′s experience on accrual-based earnings management,which is estimated by using the cross-sectional modified Jones model.Results show that an extremely weak relationship exists between the average general experience of two signing auditors and the comprehensive measure of real earnings management(RM).However,the average industry experience of signing auditors significantly and negatively affects accrual based and real earnings management.Results also show that personal experience(general and industry experiences)of reviewing partners significantly and negatively affects both types of earnings management.Further tests reveal that the relationship between signing auditor′s experience and real earnings management depends on the size of the accounting firm and the regional legal environment,particularly,more experienced signing auditors can inhibit a client′s real earnings management activity in the companies audited by non-Big 4 firms and companies located in the areas with better legal environments,meanwhile the role does not exist in Big 4 firms and companies located in areas with poor legal environment.We perform a battery of robustness checks,and the results remain identical.First,we use the propensity score matching(PSM)approach to alleviate the self-selection problem of the auditor′s personal experience and use the two-stage residual inclusion estimation to mitigate endogeneity concerns.Second,we change the samples by deleting the samples of the average tenure of two signing auditors is less than one year and adding the samples with three signing auditors.Third,we use alternative measures of real earnings management and use a dummy variable to measure the experience of signing auditors.Fourth,we control the influence of accrual-based earnings management to examine the effect of signing auditors′experience on real earnings management.We also exclude the possibility of a nonlinear relationship between the personal experience of signing auditors and real earnings management.This paper demonstrates that signing auditor′s experience,particularly the average industry experience of the two signing auditors and the personal experience of the review partner(general and industry experiences),not only negatively affects accrual-based earnings management,but can also constrain client′s real earnings management behavior.Therefore,the accumulation of auditor′s experience is tremendously helpful to audit quality.This study makes several contributions.First,our study extends the literature on the association between auditor′s personal experience and audit quality.Prior research focused on the effect of individual auditors′experience on accrual-based earnings management,whereas real earnings management was rarely considered.Whether auditor′s personal experience is positively related with audit quality remains unclear.Nonetheless,plenty of empirical evidence exists from the perspective of accrual-based earnings management.Our study investigates the impact of signing auditor′s personal experience on real earnings management and helps uncover“whether an experienced auditor can actually improve audit quality or just push the clients to resort real earnings management methods”.(2)This paper demonstrates that industry experience may be more important than general experience.This finding can further deepen the understanding of the role of auditors′heterogeneous experience.(3)This paper unveils that the impact of the signing auditor′s experience on real earnings management is contingent upon the size of the accounting firm and the legal environment of the company′s region,which helps to understand the role of auditor experience in different environments.