회계정보의 질적 특성이 노사관계에 미치는 영향 = Qualitative Traits of Accounting Information Influencing Industrial Relations

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The voluntary disclosure of financial information to employees seems to have become the mainstream these days. Furthermore, doing so is believed to support the efficiency of collective bargaining. The present study attempts to investigate the role of accounting information in the context of collective bargaining. Most prior research has approached the role of accounting information mainly from a quantitative and not a qualitative viewpoint. For this reason, the current study focuses primarily on the qualitative characteristics of accounting information and explores whether the role of information differs depending on circumstances, especially in terms of its effects on industrial relations. SFAC No. 2 has been used as a theoretical framework to list the qualitative traits of accounting information. SFAC No. 2 includes a hierarchy which is composed of a variety of traits related to information quality. Information characteristics used in this research are relevance, reliability, comparability, consistency, materiality, understandability, and the economic efficiency of information. The dependent variables most relevant to our research models are the duration of labor negotiations and the frequency of labor disputes. Duration of labor negotiations means the number of days needed in the settlement of contracts, which is closely related to the productivity of Korean enterprises, most of which renew labor contracts on an annual basis. The latter variable is related to conflicts between labor and management. In cases where conflicts get out of hand, they tend to become destructive and undesirable for all parties concerned. Thus, efforts to minimize conflicts within a reasonable boundary are necessary. We have used a variety of accounting information quality traits as the independent variables. In many cases, variables representing a homogeneous character could be reduced to a small set of underlying variables via factor analysis. Thus, factor analysis has been done on the aforementioned eleven factors of information quality. As a result, only one component has been extracted, and that has been used as the independent variable representing information quality traits. This result shows that a high degree of homogeneity exists among the categorized factors. Other variables may influence the dependent variables, so those were adopted as control variables and are as follows: enterprise performance, union size, membership in industrial unions, relations between labor and management, and frequency of information disclosure. Data was collected via a mail survey using standardized questionnaires. The subjects who participated in the survey were the representatives of labor unions of Korean listed companies. Only one copy of each questionnaire was sent to each union. Of the 670 addressees on the mailing list, 147 people returned their replies, and this resulted in 135 valid responses. The effective response rate is calculated as 20.1%. OLS regression procedures were followed regarding the duration of labor negotiations. We found that qualified accounting information has a positive effect on shortening the duration. It is also shown that healthy labor-management relations strongly influence the reduction of time spent in negotiations. However, another regression performed on the frequency of labor disputes shows that the qualitative aspect of accounting information has an insubstantial influence on labor disputes. Thus it may be interpreted that accounting information has a very limited role to play in times of harsh confrontations. Among the control variables, it has been observed that the frequency of disputes increases as the size of the union increases. In addition, positive labor-management relations influence the reduction of labor disputes. From the above research results, it can be summarized that qualified accounting information has a meaningful influence on the duration of labor negotiations while it has a negligible effect on the deterrence of labor disputes. This fact shows that the qualitative aspects of accounting information work quite well only within a limited type of labor negotiations such as mild arbitration proceedings. The above analyses also show that good labor-management relations work in a uniquely positive way in both types of situations, which stresses the value of maintaining good labor relations. This study is based solely on the responses of the union representatives. As enterprise managers may have different views, management participation is recommended for further research.

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