The study of information transparency and disclosure ranking system in Taiwan and financial information quality

• Main Authors: Chuang-Wen Chiu, 莊雯秋
• Other Authors: Ti Yu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/45748103111001325529

碩士 === 中原大學 === 會計研究所 === 96 === Given the continuing financial crisis impacting TSEC and OTC-listed companies, as of 1998, competent authorities have increased their effort to promote corporate governance. In 2002, the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp and GreTai Securities Market instituted “The Regulations for the Practice of TSEC and OTC-listed Company Governance”, in which the five major principles of corporate governance regulated in Article 2 placed the enhancement of information transparency as the major item in order to reinforce information disclosure and in particular, corporate governance information disclosure. In addition, following the enterprise transparency-related ratings continually released by international acknowledged organizations (such as AIMR, FAF, S&P and CLAS, etc.) in recent years, it is hoped that beyond merely complying with statutory regulations, enterprises will take the initiative in improving their information disclosure quality through the external supervision mechanism. This study was conducted from 2005 to 2006, and TSEC-listed companies taken from the list of the 3rd and 4th year of information disclosure ratings appraised for TSEC and OTC-listed companies, were selected as study samples, of which there was a total of 1,158 valid sample companies. At the same time, the study also investigates the correlations between information transparency and the quality of financial statements (Tobin’s Q). The following are the empirical results obtained: In terms of information transparency (DISit), the results show an insignificant positive correlation. This indicates that higher information transparency in a company does not necessarily contribute very much to the financial statement quality (TQit) of the company. This result is consistent with that of Potter & Rayburn (1993). For group A companies, the results show an insignificant positive correlation, which represents that their financial statement quality (TQit) is not necessarily better simply because they are group A companies. When it comes to company size (SIZEit), an insignificant positive correlation is found. As for debt ratio (LEVit), the results show a significant negative correlation, which represents that the smaller the debt ratio, the better the financial statement quality (TQit). As for income growth (GROWit), the results show a significant positive correlation, which represents that the higher the income growth, the better the financial statement quality (TQit). Regarding current gain/loss (LOSSit), a significant negative correlation is found. As for INDit, there is a significant positive correlation. The outcomes of the study are consistent with the expected results; this signifies that Hypothesis 3, which assumes that the financial information quality of the electronics industry is better than that of non-electronics industry, shows statistical significant level.