A study of the relationship between corporate governance and real earnings management: Based on foreign investors and growth

기업지배구조와 실제이익조정의 관계 연구: 외국인투자자와 성장성을 중심으로

Purpose - This study conducted empirical research on non-financial corporations listed on the stock exchange from 2001 to 2010, focusing on the effects of corporate governance on real earnings management of corporations. In particular, this study examined primarily the impact of the largest shareholder who could use earnings management to pursue his own self-interest, and foreign investors who played a checking role against the largest shareholders. The study also reviewed the relationship between corporate governance and earnings management while also considering corporate growth. Research design, data, and methodology - As for the measurements of real earnings management, abnormal operating cash flow and abnormal production cost were utilized. As for the independent variables, share ratio of the largest shareholder and affiliate person (M) and share ratio of foreign investors (FT) were leveraged. This study excluded those organizations that had changed their fiscal years, those that had not submitted an audit report, corporations under supervision, delisted corporations, corporations that had changed their business type, and so on, from the non-financial corporations out of the publicly traded corporations whose fiscal year ended in December from 2001 to 2010 in addition, KIS values were utilized for the corporate financial data in the study. To verify whether management structure and growth had an impact on real earnings management of a corporation through empirical analysis, a multiple regression analysis model was applied. Result - First, as a result of the analysis, the share ratio (M) of the largest shareholder and affiliate person was found to have a significant positive correlation with abnormal cash flow from operations(ACF) and abnormal production cost (APD). When controlling the growth, the share ratio (M) of the largest shareholder and affiliate person was found to have an insignificant correlation with abnormal cash flow from operations(ACF) but a significant correlation with abnormal production cost (APD). Second, foreign ownership (FT) was found to have a significant positive correlation with abnormal cash flow from operations(ACF) and abnormal production cost (APD) at the confidence level of 1 percent when not including the growth dummy. When controlling the growth, foreign ownership (FT) was found to have a significant negative correlation with abnormal cash flow from operations (ACF) and with abnormal production cost (APD). Conclusion - The results imply that the largest shareholder is closely related to earnings management through real activities regardless of corporate growth. It is also possible to determine from these results that foreign investors are related to earnings management through real activities when not considering corporate growth, but that they would reduce earnings management in the case of considering the growth. Thus, this study verified along with the existing studies that foreign investors were conducting the control function on controlling shareholders.