A CEO Pay Slice and the Reliability of Accounting Information on Service Industry

Abstract

Purpose - The present study examined the reliability of accounting information based on the pay slice (CPS) information of chief executive officers (CEOs) in the service industry. The difference in the size of CPS under the capitalist system can be used as an index to gauge the influence of top management. Research design, data, and methodology - In accordance with the amendment of the Financial Investment Services and Capital Market Act in 2013, the pay information of individual registered executives with annual salary of more than 500 million won has been disclosed. The sample of the current study is 232 companies listed on the Korea Exchange excluding financial services from 2013 to 2015, when the individual pay-slice information for registration officers was published in the business report in accordance with the revision of the Capital Market Act. The financial data required for this study were extracted from the FnGuide and the TS-2000. With the data, we tested the relationship between CPS and accounting information reliability through a linear regression analysis. Results – The first result showed that the relationship between the CPS and human resource in internal accounting control system in the service industry is significantly negative only with the accounting department personnel. This result implied that the CEO can negatively affect the retention of the accounting department in the firm. Second, both the CPS and quality of audit in the service industry are negatively related both to audit fees and to audit time. Nonetheless, the relationship between the number of the auditor and the CPS is insignificant. This result indicated that the CEO can negatively affect audit fees and audit time of external auditors. The results of the present study suggested that CPS information may have a negative impact on the reliability of accounting information. Conclusion - This study is the first study to examine the reliability of CPS and accounting information for the service industry in terms of human resources in internal accounting control system and audit quality. Therefore, the present study is expected to provide some useful information to economic decision-making of various external parties for service firms.