본 연구는 이사회 영향력이 회계정보의 신뢰성에 어떠한 영향을 미치는지를 살펴본다. 본 연구에서 이사회 영향력은 경영자와 사회적 관계를 가지고 있지 않은 사외이사의 존재와 경영자와 이사회 의장의 분리여부로 측정되며, 이러한 변수가 경영자의 이익조정 규모에 미치는 영향을 분석한다. 정부는 회계투명성 개선작업으로써 경영자를 견제하고 내부 의사결정 시스템의 신뢰성을 높이기 위한 제도적 장치의 하나로 사외이사 선임을 의무화하였다. 하지만 사외이사들이 본연의 기능을 수행하고 있는지에 대한 실효성 논란은 현재 진행형이다. 이러한 논란은 대부분의 경영자들이 사외이사 선임권을 가지고 있어, 자신과 연고관계가 있는 사외이사로 이사회를 구성하여 이사회의 감시기능을 무력화시킬 가능성에서 비롯된다. 또한 대부분의 국내 기업들은 경영자가 이사회 의장을 겸직하고 있다. 경영자가 이사회의 의장을 맡고 있는 경우 경영자의 독단과 전횡적인 의사결정에 대하여 이사회의 통제기능이 제대로 작동 될 수 없을 것이다. 따라서 본 연구는 이사회의 독립성 결여를 이사회의 실효성에 영향을 미치는 중요한 요인으로 보고, 이사회의 독립성이 이익조정에 어떤 영향을 미치는지를 알아보고자 한다. 본 연구의 실증분석 결과, 먼저 경영자와 사회적 관계가 없는 사외이사의 비율이 높은 기업일수록, 경영자의 이익조정 크기가 작은 것으로 나타났다. 또한 경영자와 이사회 의장이 분리된 기업의 이익조정 크기는 작게 나타나는 것을 확인하였다. 본 연구의 공헌점으로, 첫째, 기존의 연구들은 주로 이사회 내 사외이사의 비율을 이사회의 독립성에 대한 대용치로 사용하여 분석하였다. 그러나 본 연구는 한국의 독특한 인적 네트워크의 특성을 반영하여 실질적인 사외이사 독립성의 기준을 찾고자 하였다. 둘째, 경영자와 이사회 의장 분리를 통한 이사회 구조적 독립성 확보가 경영자의 이익조정 동기를 억제시킨다는 발견은 국내 다수의 경영자가 이사회 의장을 겸직하는 현실에서 향후 지배구조 개선 방향에 정책적 함의를 가질 것으로 기대한다. 마지막으로 본 연구는 사외이사 제도의 형식적인 도입이 기업지배구조의 실질적인 개선에 한계가 있으며, 이를 극복하기 위해서는 실질적으로 독립적인 사외이사가 선임될 필요가 있음을 시사한다는 점에서 의미가 있다.
This paper examines the relation between Board Leadership and the reliability of financial reporting. The Board Leadership is measured based on the proportion of outside directors who have no social ties with the management, and the separation of the roles of CEO(Chief Executive Officer) and the chairman of the board. We investigate the efficiency of such board characteristics in reducing earnings management(measured by discretionary accruals). As part of efforts to improve accounting transparency, the government has mandated the introduction of outside director system as an institutional device to keep the management in check and improve the reliability of the internal decision-making system. The board of directors (BOD) of a corporation, on behalf of the shareholders, has the responsibility to keep the management in check and prevent despotism. In this light, the role of outside directors is important. However, the debate is ongoing as to whether outside directors are properly carrying out their expected function. Most of these debates arise from the fact that, in most cases, the management has the right to appoint outside directors, and possibly appoint outside directors socially connected with the management, accordingly weakening the control function of the board. Also, in most Korean corporations, the CEO serves as the chairman of the board concurrently. This is also very likely to harm the independence of the board of directors (BOD). If the CEO is also the chairman of the board, the monitoring ability of the board of directors (BOD) to prevent the management’s arbitrary and despotic decision-making is less. In this study, the lack of independence of the board of directors (BOD) is considered to be an important factor that affects on the effectiveness of the board of directors (BOD), and aims to investigate the relation between independence of the board of directors (BOD) and earnings management. That is, it is analyzed whether ensuring independence of the board of directors (BOD) induces the management to provide suitable and reliable financial reporting. The results of this study are as follow. First, Based on a sample of Korean companies, it was shown that, if the ratio of outside directors having no social relationship with the management is high, the managers are likely to engage in lower level of earnings management. Second, the separation of CEO and the chairman of the board showed a significant association with earnings management. We found that Chairman Independence is an important factor in constraining the inclination of CEO to engage in earnings management. The contributions of this study are as follow. First, previous studies, mostly under the premise that outside directors are independent, used the ratio of outside directors to the board as an indicator of the board of directors (BOD) independence. However, under the current outside director system, wherein the ratio of outside directors is regulated by law, using the ratio of outside directors as a proxy for the independence of the board of directors (BOD) has its limitations. To improve on this limitation, this study aimed to find a practical standard for the independence of the board of directors (BOD), reflecting the unique characteristics of Korean human networks. That is, addition to previous studies, this study examined whether the outside directors had social ties with the management or not. Second, CEO duality is the important characteristic of board. CEO duality means that the position of the CEO and the chairman of the board are served by the same person. It is the responsibility of the board of directors (BOD) to make sure that the CEO is serving the stakeholder’s interests in the best possible way. Therefore, the relationship between the chairman of the board of director (BOD) and the CEO is essential. It is assumed that non-duality is an important matter in the securing of structural independence of the board. Most of Korean listed companies have CEO duality, so there is lack of studies to shed light on CEO duality issue. It is meaningful that the examination of whether such structural differences weaken manager’s incentives for earnings management. This paper provides empirical evidence on the significance CEO duality has in influencing the earnings management of Korea listed firms. Third, this study has pointed out that the perfunctory introduction of the outside director system is limited in bringing practical improvements to corporate governance structure - firms need to hire genuinely independent outside directors.