핵심감사제의 도입효과에 관한 연구

초록

Due to the 'accounting cliff' phenomenon of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Company Limited in 2015, the suspicion of window-dressing accounting of the order-made production industry has become an issue, and as the 'accounting cliff' phenomenon has repeatedly occurred in other companies in the order-made production industry such as Daewoo Engineering & Construction Company Limited and Hyundai Engineering Company Limited, the issue of order-made production industry's accounting treatment and accounting transparency received attention. The order-made production industry generally recognizes revenues in line with the percentage of completion, and the calculation of the percentage of completion requires quite some estimation and manager's judgment. Perfect estimation is impossible. That is, if the estimation is not appropriate, the percentage of completion cannot be measured appropriately and wrong revenues will be recognized. Therefore, the Financial Supervisory Service has introduced the key audit matters into the order-made production industry to improve poor accounting due to such uncertainty in estimation. The key audit matters were introduced somewhat in a hurry when being prepared for introduction as the suspicion of window-dressing accounting of the order-made production industry became an issue. Therefore, negative opinions against the key audit matters were raised arguing that since the key audit matters were introduced into the order-made production industry in a hurry, the relevant costs are bigger than the effects. In addition, there are also voices of concern arguing that following the introduction of the key audit matters, the most core accounting information and risk factors of firms may be disclosed to investors so that side effects may appear. In addition, given that key audit matters are implemented only in a few countries such as the UK and France and have not been introduced into the US and Germany where audit environments are similar to those in South Korea, empirical evidence on whether the positive effects of the key audit matters would appear in the domestic environments is insufficient. Therefore, it is considered necessary to empirically analyze the usefulness of the key audit matters. To this end, this study analyzes the effect of the key audit matters on audit time, the quality of earnings, and information asymmetry. The results of empirical analysis of this study are summarized as follows. First, audit time was shown to have increased after the introduction of key audit matters. Second, the quality of earnings has improved after the introduction of key audit matters. Specifically, it was identified that after the introduction of key audit matters, the absolute value of discretionary accruals decreased and that the conservatism of accounting treatments increased. Third, information asymmetry was shown to have decreased after the introduction of key audit matters. That is, the volatility of daily stock returns and the volatility of unexpected returns are shown to be lower after the introduction of key audit matters. This study is differentiated from previous studies in that it provides empirical evidence for the effect of introduction of the key audit matters. Previous studies related to the key audit matters have been conducted mainly as survey studies and empirical studies cannot be easily found. Also, negative opinions have been raised arguing that following the introduction of the key audit matters. In this situation, analyzing the usefulness of key audit matters should be practically and academically meaningful. In addition, this study will contribute to the dissipation of negative opinions and voices of concern through empirical evidence that positive effects are generated by the introduction of the key audit matters. Finally, this study is judged to help improve the system for the implementation and settlement of key audit matters in that it provides empirical evidence for the positive effect of key audit matters. The Financial Services Commission has modified the key audit matters implemented in other countries where the institutional and legal environments are different from South Korea before introducing the key audit matters into South Korea. Although the key audit matters were modified to fit domestic circumstances, there is a lack of empirical evidence on whether the positive effects of key audit matters would appear in South Korea too. Therefore, this study has implications in that it presents empirical evidence for the introduction of the key audit matters.

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