会计学院知识库

  会计信息作为反映企业经营情况的重要载体，对资本市场的稳定发展和社会经济的有序运行发挥了重要作用。现实环境中，由于信息披露监管制度的更新速度难以与市场环境的变化节奏相吻合，使得企业与利益相关者之间出现了信息严重不对等的问题，公司财务舞弊现象频发。为有效解决市场主体信息披露不充分、质量低等问题，证券交易所建立了以问询函监管为核心的信息披露事后监管机制。公司收到年报问询函意味着对外披露的年报中存在内容披露不完整或业务处理不当的问题，公司要对此做出解释说明。与带有强制性和滞后性的传统行政监管制度相比，年报问询函具有专业性和及时性，故引起了市场参与主体的广泛关注，也成为学术界研究的热门话题。

  本文研究样本选取2015至2020年的A股上市公司，构建多元回归模型，分析研究了交易所年报问询函对会计信息透明度的影响，以及产权性质、内部控制水平和两权分离对年报问询函与会计信息透明度关系的调节效应，在进一步分析中，检验了年报问询函性质严重程度对公司会计信息透明度的影响。研究结论表明：第一，年报问询函对收函公司会计信息透明度具有提升作用；第二，在非国有企业、内部控制水平低以及存在两权分离的企业中，年报问询函对会计信息透明度的提升作用更显著；第三，年报问询函性质越严重，越有利于提高公司会计信息透明度。

  通过研究交易所年报问询函与会计信息透明度之间的关系，以及产权性质、内部控制水平和两权分离状态差异下二者关系的异质性，进一步拓展年报问询函监管机制的相关研究，为促进证券市场监管体制改革，保护投资者的相关权益起到启示作用，也为发挥公司内外部治理机制的协同效应提供有益参考。随着问询函公开年份的累计，本研究样本数据可持续更新，且后续研究可从交易所发出的意见函、关注函等其他类型问询函及其信息特征进行展开，进一步拓展研究面。

      Accounting information, as an important vehicle to reflect the operation of enterprises, plays a vital role in the stable development of the capital market and the orderly operation of the social economy. In the real environment, the speed at which the regulatory regime for information disclosure is updated hardly matches the pace of change in the market environment, resulting in a serious information mismatch between companies and stakeholders and a high incidence of corporate financial fraud. To effectively address the problems of inadequate and low quality information disclosure by market participants, the Stock Exchange has established an ex-post monitoring mechanism for information disclosure with the supervision of enquiry letters as the core. The receipt of an annual report enquiry letter means that there are “omissions” in the annual report disclosed to the public, which the company has to explain. Compared with the traditional administrative regulatory system, which is mandatory and lagging, the annual report enquiry letter is professional and timely, thus attracting widespread attention from market participants and becoming a hot topic for academic research.

    The research sample of this paper was selected from A-share listed companies from 2015 to 2020, and a multiple regression model was constructed to analyze and study the impact of exchange annual report enquiry letters on the transparency of accounting information, as well as the moderating effects of the nature of ownership, level of internal control and separation of powers on the relationship between annual report enquiry letters and the transparency of accounting information. In a further analysis, the impact of the severity of the nature of the annual report enquiry letter on the transparency of the company’s accounting information was tested. My main findings are as follows: Firstly, annual report enquiry letters have an enhancing effect on the transparency of accounting information of the recipient companies. Secondly, the effect of annual report enquiry letters on the transparency of accounting information is more significant among non-state-owned enterprises, enterprises with low level of internal control and enterprises with separation of powers. Thirdly, the more serious the nature of annual report enquiry letters, the more beneficial it is to improve the transparency of accounting information of the companies.

    By examining the relationship between exchange annual report letters of inquiry and the transparency of accounting information, and the heterogeneity of their impact given the differences in the nature of ownership, the level of internal control and the state of separation of powers, we further expand the research related to the regulatory mechanism of annual report letters of inquiry. It serves as an inspiration for promoting the reform of the securities market regulatory system and protecting the relevant rights and interests of investors, and also provides a useful reference for exploiting the synergy effect of the internal and external governance mechanisms of the company. The sample data of this study can be updated continuously with the accumulation of the years in which the inquiry letters are made public, and subsequent studies can be conducted on other types of inquiry letters and their information characteristics such as opinion letters and concern letters issued by exchanges to further expand the research area.