| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 會計研究所 === 91 === Abstract
Rewarding their employees with stocks, a prevalent practice for high-tech firms in Taiwan, serves as a primary managerial tool for attracting and retaining quality people. However, difference in accounting treatment of this bonus practice in terms of expensing vs. appropriation of retained earnings exists between U.S. and R.O.C. GAAPs. As such, companies with high profits, measured R.O.C. GAAPs, will more than often show humongous losses once converted to be in accordance with U.S. GAAPs. The anti-dumping suit against Taiwan electronics industry in 1998 as well as the more recent criticism on the severe dilution effect of this practice on equity value from the QFII analysts reveals the economic importance of this issue.
Accounting academias prefer expensing treatment to reflect the economic substance. The management of companies retains the opposite view and is strongly pro for current practice due to losses would be inevitably shown in their accounting books. Government policy results in an obviously compromising solution as react to the tension from both communities. However, there is limited research effort on the view of the market participants for this important issue.
The reporting requirements from Taiwan authority aside, for firms issued ADRs in the U.S. capital market are required to prepare another set of accounting statements (the 20-F) in accordance with U.S. GAAPs. This unique background provides us a intriguing setting for exploring the relative information content of the employee stock bonus when differently measured in accordance with U.S. and Taiwan GAAPs. In specific, this thesis investigates which set of accounting performance measures will ADR investors turn to for their investment decision-making.
The main empirical results show that in the context of employee stock bonus, ADR investors in U. S. market prefer the measure of earnings gauged in accordance with R.O.C GAAPs. The bonus cost determined in compliance with form 20-F is less informative than that measured by the closing price at the year-end or the annual shareholders’ meeting date. The analysis also indicates that ADR investors didn’t show strong preference as to whether the bonus costs are determined by the closing prices at the year-end or the annual shareholders’ meeting date. The findings may thus imply that compared to the information quality of relevance the timeliness of information renders more importance in ADR investment decisions.
Key wards: employee stock bones, ADR, information content
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