The Accounting Review · Vol. 92, No. 4 · July 2017
CEO继任和继任计划会影响利益相关者对财务报告风险的看法吗？来自审计费用的证据
作者：Kenneth L. Bills (University of Arkansas), Ling Lei Lisic (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University), Timothy A. Seidel (Brigham Young University)
摘要：在这篇文章中，我们研究了CEO继任和继任计划如何影响那些负责制定和监督公司财务报告的利益相关者（如：审计师、管理层和审计委员会）对公司财务报告风险的看法。管理层继任意味着公司未来运营情况、财务政策以及盈余管理潜在动机的不确定性，由此我们预测管理层继任会提升利益相关者所认为的公司财务报告造假的风险。和我们的预测一致，我们发现新任CEO公司的审计费用更高。然而，重要的是，我们注意到谨慎的CEO继任计划（即，有“法定继承人”）并未伴随着审计费用的调整，这表明谨慎的CEO继任计划削弱了利益相关者对较高风险的看法。审计费用和CEO继任以及继任计划之间关系有可能是由那些影响CEO变更的因素所导致的，我们对此进行了一些说明和分析来缓解这一问题，发现结果是稳健的。我们的研究还发现，随着新的非继承人CEO在公司时间的增长，审计费用的增加会慢慢消失，进一步证明了审计费用的增加是由于新CEO带来的不确定性导致的。此外，不考虑继任计划，我们没有发现新CEO的上任使审计质量变差了。
关键词：CEO继任，继任计划，财务报告风险，审计费用，法定继承人，内部CEO
Do CEO Succession and Succession Planning Affect Stakeholders' Perceptions of Financial Reporting Risk? Evidence from Audit Fees
Kenneth L. Bills (University of Arkansas), Ling Lei Lisic (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University), Timothy A. Seidel (Brigham Young University)
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we examine how CEO succession and succession planning affect perceptions of financial reporting risk among stakeholders who are responsible for and oversee firms' financial reporting (e.g., auditors, management, and audit committees). Management succession introduces uncertainty about firms' future operations, financial policies, and potential motivation for earnings management, which we predict elevates the perceived risk of financial reporting improprieties. Consistent with this prediction, we find that audit fees are higher for firms with new CEOs. Importantly, however, we note that careful CEO succession planning (i.e., promoting an “heir apparent”) attenuates perceptions of higher risk, as evidenced by a lack of an audit pricing adjustment. These results are robust to several alternative specifications and analyses designed to mitigate the concern that the association between audit fees and CEO succession and succession planning is driven by factors leading to the CEO change. We also show that audit fee increases dissipate over time as the new, non-heir CEO stays longer at the firm, reinforcing the inference that audit fees increase in response to the uncertainty surrounding a new CEO. Additionally, we do not find evidence of a deterioration in audit quality with new CEOs, independent of the succession plan.
原文链接：http://aaajournals.org/doi/abs/10.2308/accr-51567
翻译：唐国梅
