Tone at the top이 회계투명성에 미치는 영향 = An effect of tone at the top on accounting transparency

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of top management’s tone at the top (CEO’s ethical tone, TAT) revealed in CEO ’s letter to shareholders on accounting transparency. Specifically, we analyzed CEOs ‘s narratives in the CEO’ s shareholder letter of the annual report or sustainability report, and identified the TAT that the manager intends to implant in the organization, and finally examined whether it affects the accounting transparency. This study used DICTION, a Windows - based language analysis program, to identify the CEO ‘s TAT in CEO’ s shareholder letter. The scores of the five master variables, “certainty”, “optimism”, “activity”, “realism” and “commonality” are used as measures for CEO’s TAT and the discretionary accruals as a measure of the quality of financial reporting, ie, accounting transparency. Based on this reasoning, we set up five hypotheses that predict negative effects of “certainty”, “optimism”, and “activity” and positive effects of “realism” and “commonality” on accounting transparency. During the period from 2003 to 2015, we tested five hypotheses using 84 samples that could secure the shareholders’ letter of the CEO among the listed companies in Korea securities market.
The results show that the transparency of financial reporting improves as CEOs emphasize “commonality”, that is, the agreed value of group, mutual cooperation, and the atmosphere of building good bonds with stakeholders. However, the attitude of CEOs that emphasize “certainty”, “optimism”, “activity” and “realism” does not have a significant effect on improving transparency in financial reporting.
This paper has the following contribution to the literature and the practice.
First, it differs from the previous research in that it changes focus of the management transparency research from corporate governance to the management, itself. Second, it implies for the accounting literature and auditor practice that TAT identified in CEO’s narratives, in other words non-audited information can affect the transparency of financial reporting.

국문 초록 (Abstract)

본 연구는 기업의 연차보고서에 포함된 주주서한(CEO’s letter to shareholders)에서 드러나는 최고 경영자의tone at the top(경영자의 윤리적 성향, 이하 TAT )이 회계투명성에 미치는 영향을 조사하는 것을 그 목적으로 한다. 구체적으로 연차보고서 혹은 지속가능보고서의 경영자 주주서한에서 드러나는 경영자의 말을 분석하여, 경영자가 조직에 이식하려는 TAT를 추출하고 그것이 회계투명성에 미치는 영향 여부를 살펴보았다. 최고경영자의 주주서한에서 최고 경영자의 TAT를 파악하기 위해 본 연구는 Windows기반의 언어분석 프로그램인 DICTION 을 사용하였다. DICTION이 산정한 5가지 마스터변수들(master variables), “확실성(certainty)”, “낙관주의(optimism)”, “활동성(activity)”, “현실주의(realism)” 그리고 “공통성(commonality)”의 점수를 최고 경영자의 TAT 측정치로, 재량적 발생액을 재무보고의 질, 즉 회계투명성의 대용치로 보았다. 이를 기초로 확실성, 낙관주의, 활동성은 회계투명성에 부정적인 영향을, 현실주의와 공통성은 긍정적인 영향을 예상하는 5가지의 가설을 설정하였다. 2003년부터 2015년까지의 기간 중에 국내 유가증권시장 상장기업 중 최고경영자의 주주서한을 확보할 수있는 84개 기업/연을 대상으로 5가지 가설을 검증하였다.
분석결과 최고 경영자들이 공통성(commonality), 즉 집단의 합의된 가치, 상호협력을 강조하고 이해관계자들과 좋은 유대를 구축하려는 분위기를 리드할수록 재무보고의 투명성이 개선되는 것으로 나타났다. 하지만 최고경영자의 확실성(certainty)”, “낙관주의(optimism)”, “활동성(activity)”, “현실주의(realism)” 등을 강조하는 태도는 재무보고 투명성 개선에 유의한 영향을 미치지 못하는 것으로 나타났다.
본 논문은 다음과 같은 점에서 공헌점을 가진다.
첫째, 경영자를 견제하는 기업지배구조 중심의 회계투명성 연구의 초점을 경영자 자신 쪽으로 전환한 연구라는점에서 선행연구와 차별화 된다. 둘째, 비감사정보인 경영자의 말(narratives)에서 파악한 TAT가 재무보고의 투명성에 영향을 미칠 수 있다는 점을 발견한 연구라는 점에서 학계 및 감사 실무에 함의가 있다.

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