The provision of Measures for the Administration of Equity Incentive of Listed Companies (Trial) stipulates the listed companies that intend to implement equity incentives cannot have an audit report where there is an adverse opinion or disclaimer of opinion. This provision may induce companies preparing to implement equity incentives to engage in strategic opinion shopping. Specifically, opinion shopping can be achieved by raising audit fees, auditor changes or other means. Opinion shopping damages the independence of auditors, and it impacts the audit quality of financial statements. Therefore, this study is devoted to studying whether companies engage in strategic opinion shopping before implementing equity incentives. If that phenomenon is real, what are the characteristics of enterprises engaging in opinion shopping before the implementation of equity incentives? To analyze opinion shopping before the implementation of equity incentives, first, the propensity score matching method is used for selecting the corresponding control group that companies do not implement equity incentives for the experimental group that companies have the plan of implementing equity incentives. Then based on the experimental group and the selected control group data, the opinion shopping model of Lennox (2000) is adopted to analyze opinion shopping. Finally, the equity incentive related variables are added to the opinion shopping model of Lennox (2000), which forms the difference-in-differences model to analyze the opinion shopping before the implementation of equity incentives. The main conclusions are as following. First, the equity incentive plan has a significant inducement effect on opinion shopping before the implementation of equity incentives. Companies with equity incentive plans have obvious opinion shopping behaviors before the implementation of equity incentives to meet the provision. Second, in 1 year prior to the implementation of equity incentives, the audit quality of companies with equity incentive plans is lower, which is reflected in the reduction of the performance through the manipulation of negative accruals. Third, companies engage in partner-level opinion shopping in 1 or 2 years prior to the implementation of equity incentives, and they engage in auditor-level opinion shopping in 1 year prior to that. Fourth, in distinguishing the nature of property rights and organizational forms of audit firms, it is found that partner-level opinion shopping before the implementation of equity incentives is more significant in non-state-owned enterprises. Partner-level opinion shopping before the implementation of equity incentives can be inhibited when audit firms were formed as a partnership before 2013, but it cannot be inhibited after 2013. The contributions of this article are mainly reflected in the following two aspects. First, this paper shows the fact that there is opinion shopping induced by Measures for the Administration of Equity Incentive of Listed Companies (Trial). Second, this paper studies the factors that have influence on opinion shopping from the perspective of the implementation of equity incentives, which enriches the literature on stock incentives and opinion shopping. In view of the phenomenon of opinion shopping before the implementation of equity incentives, this study puts forward the following suggestions. First, regulatory authorities should accurately grasp the supervision time and strengthen the supervision before the implementation of equity incentives. There is generally a time lag between the publication date of equity incentive draft and the granting date, sometimes even across a fiscal year. Therefore, in order to protect the rights of investors and maintain the capital market order, regulatory authorities should strengthen supervisions on companies issuing the draft of equity incentives. Second, the detailed reasons of the partner’s change should be disclosed compulsorily. Compared with the auditor, the partner’s change is more concealed. Therefore, the companies, which have the disclosure of equity incentive draft and the change of the partner, are required to disclose the detailed reasons to facilitate regulatory supervisions.
/ Journals / Journal of Finance and Economics
Journal of Finance and Economics
LiuYuanchun, Editor-in-Chief
ZhengChunrong, Vice Executive Editor-in-Chief
YaoLan BaoXiaohua HuangJun, Vice Editor-in-Chief
The Investigation on Opinion Shopping Before the Implementation of Equity Incentives
Journal of Finance and Economics Vol. 44, Issue 11, pp. 33 - 46 (2018) DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.jfe.2018.11.003
Summary
References
Summary
[1]Chen X. Executives equity incentives and audit supervision: Benefits balance or signal transmission?[J]. Journal of Audit & Economics, 2017, (4): 39-50. (In Chinese)
[2]Duan Y, Chen B. Assets impairment loss, audit fees and audit Opinion[J]. Auditing Research, 2017, (2): 40-47. (In Chinese)
[3]Lu C, Sun J, Zhang X, et al. Equity incentives and investment behavior of listed companies: An analysis based on propensity score matching[J]. China Soft Science, 2015, (5): 110-118. (In Chinese)
[4]Lv C, Yan M, Zheng H, et al. Why corporates choose stock option? Evidence from China[J]. Accounting Research, 2011, (1): 68-75. (In Chinese)
[5]Lv C, Zhang H. The effect of the stock option plans on corporate investment behaviors[J]. Management World, 2011, (11): 118-126. (In Chinese)
[6]Lv C, Zhao Y. A study on the effect of the incentive given to managers of state-owned enterprises[J]. Management World, 2008, (11): 99-109. (In Chinese)
[7]Ni X, Dai D, Zhang D. Equity incentive and audit fees: Empirical evidence from China[J]. Auditing Research, 2017, (1): 69-77. (In Chinese)
[8]Shao S, Zhou T, Lv C. Stock incentive design between SOEs and private firms: Case study on Shanghai Jahwa[J]. Accounting Research, 2014, (10): 43-50. (In Chinese)
[9]Tang Y. Audit fees, audit committee and opinion shopping: Empirical evidence from China with the panel of 200-2005[J]. Journal of Financial Research, 2007, (4): 114-128. (In Chinese)
[10]Wang D, Wu D. Equity incentive and risk taking: Evidence from China listed companies[J]. Nankai Business Review, 2016, (3): 157-167. (In Chinese)
[11]Wu Y, Wu S. Executive compensation: Incentives or self-interests? —— Evidence from listed firms in China[J]. Accounting Research, 2010, (11): 40-48. (In Chinese)
[12]Xiao X, Liu Y, Liu Y. Executives earnings management behaviors in the implementation of equity incentive: From perspective of performance evaluation for option exercise[J]. Accounting Research, 2013, (12): 40-46. (In Chinese)
[13]Xie D, Cui H, Tang X. The motivation to meet performance target of performance-based equity incentive plans and real earnings management[J]. Nankai Business Review, 2018, (1): 159-171. (In Chinese)
[14]Zeng J, Wu L, Wang L. The attention to Chinese housing demolition and relocation, claims for investor protection, and accrual quality: Evidence from institutional economics and internet governance[J]. Economic Research Journal, 2013, (7): 90-103. (In Chinese)
[15]Yang H, Wang J, Zheng Y. Managerial equity incentives, controlling shareholder characteristics and the choice of credit contracts[J]. Journal of Finance and Economics, 2018, (1): 75-86. (In Chinese)
[16]Zhai S, Zhang W, Cao Y, et al. Analyst tracking and audit opinion shopping[J]. Accounting Research, 2016, (6): 86-93. (In Chinese)
[17]Zhang H, Lv C. Stock option awards and accounting policy choice : Analysis based on asset impairment accounting[J]. Journal of Finance and Economics, 2011, (7): 60-70. (In Chinese)
[18]Zhang H, Wen T. The validity testing and selecting of proxy variables of for auditing quality[J]. Auditing Research, 2016, (4): 67-75. (In Chinese)
[19]Zheng J, Lin Z, Peng L, et al. Can political connection realize opinion shopping? A perspective of investors protection[J]. Journal of Finance and Economics, 2010, (11): 104-114. (In Chinese)
[20]Zhou J, Sun J. The research on governance effect of top-management stock incentive: Empirical evidences from Chinese listed companies[J]. Economic Research Journal, 2003, (5): 74-82. (In Chinese)
[21]Archambeault D S, Dezoort F T, Hermanson D R. Audit committee incentive compensation and accounting restatements[J]. Contemporary Accounting Research, 2008, 25(4): 965-992. DOI:10.1506/car.25.4.1
[22]Bebchuk L A, Fried J M. Executive compensation as an agency problem[J]. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2003, 17(3): 71-92. DOI:10.1257/089533003769204362
[23]Billings B A, Gao X H, Jia Y H. CEO and CFO equity incentives and the pricing of audit services[J]. Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, 2014, 33(2): 1-25.
[24]Chen F, Peng S L, Xue S, et al. Do audit clients successfully engage in opinion shopping? Partner-level evidence[J]. Journal of Accounting Research, 2016, 54(1): 79-112. DOI:10.1111/1475-679X.12097
[25]DeFond M L, Zhang J Y. A review of archival auditing research[J]. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 2014, 58(2-3): 275-326. DOI:10.1016/j.jacceco.2014.09.002
[26]Efendi J, Srivastava A, Swanson E P. Why do corporate managers misstate financial statements? The role of option compensation and other factors[J]. Journal of Financial Economics, 2007, 85(3): 667-708. DOI:10.1016/j.jfineco.2006.05.009
[27]Fang H Y, Nofsinger J R, Quan J. The effects of employee stock option plans on operating performance in Chinese firms[J]. Journal of Banking & Finance, 2015, 54: 141-159.
[28]Gul F A, Wu D H, Yang Z F. Do individual auditors affect audit quality? Evidence from archival data[J]. The Accounting Review, 2013, 88(6): 1993-2023. DOI:10.2308/accr-50536
[29]Jayaraman S, Milbourn T T. CEO equity incentives and financial misreporting: The role of auditor expertise[J]. The Accounting Review, 2015, 90(1): 321-350. DOI:10.2308/accr-50854
[30]Kim Y, Li H D, Li S Q. CEO equity incentives and audit fees[J]. Contemporary Accounting Research, 2015, 32(2): 608-638. DOI:10.1111/care.2015.32.issue-2
[31]Lennox C. Do companies successfully engage in opinion-shopping? Evidence from the UK[J]. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 2000, 29(3): 321-337. DOI:10.1016/S0165-4101(00)00025-2
[32]Levin J, Tadelis S. Profit sharing and the role of professional partnerships[J]. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2005, 120(1): 131-171.
Cite this article
Xie Yuhui, Liu Wenjun, Shi Dejin. The Investigation on Opinion Shopping Before the Implementation of Equity Incentives[J]. Journal of Finance and Economics, 2018, 44(11): 33-46.
Export Citations as:
For
ISSUE COVER
RELATED ARTICLES