대주주의 주식담보대출과 감사수준

Abstract

[Purpose] The purpose of this study is to verify the relationship between the Major Shareholders’ Share Pledging and the level of Audit Quality. In other words, we empirically analyzed whether stock-pledged loans of major shareholders are systematically reflected in auditor's audit risk in terms of audit hours and fees.
 [Methodology] The main variables of this study are extracted from the disclosures of stock-pledged loans and the audit report. Then, we employ the multiple regression analysis to test the hypothesis of this study.
 [Findings] We found that there is a significant positive relationship between the audit efforts proxied by audit fees and audit hours and stock-pledging. These results imply that auditors are trying to conduct intensive auditing for the companies with stock-pledging. This suggests that auditors tend to invest high audit efforts by judging companies with stock-pledged loans as nontransparent firms that are more likely to provide distorted financial information.
 [Implications] This study is meaningful in that it provides additional empirical evidence for academia-related research by examining the attitudes of auditors toward stock-pledged loans for Korean companies. In addition, the results of this study suggest that stock-pledged loans of large shareholders are important factors in determining not only the auditor's audit fees but also the audit hours in the audit market. It also provided insightful implications in practice, such as investors who are interested in insiders' personal borrowing decisions.