An Empirical Study On The Influence Of Board Structure Characteristics On Accounting Conservatism

The separation of two rights in modem company has caused the principal-agent problem,which leads to the information asymmetry between the owner and the management.As the management is responsible for the internal management of the enterprise,to some extent,they have a certain degree of information advantage.When their interests are different,in order to obtain self-interests,the management may have opportunistic behaviors,manipulate the accounting surplus,and reduce the quality of accounting information.This has greatly damaged the interests of shareholders and other stakeholders and seriously hindered the development of the company.As an important accounting standard,accounting conservatism can alleviate the agency problems arising from the separation of two rights,effectively reduce the information asymmetry between the two agents,and play an active role in improving the efficiency of the contract and reducing the agency cost.As the core of corporate governance,the board of directors has the responsibility to supervise and constrain the behavior of managers.Effective board governance mechanisms can encourage managers to use prudent accounting policies to improve the quality of accounting information.This study provides new empirical evidence and reference for the governance of the board of directors,and has a certain guiding significance for in-depth understanding of accounting conservatism.First,on the basis of reading domestic and foreign literature,the paper selects the six variables of the board size,the proportion of independent directors,the separation of the chairman and the CEO,the number of special committees,the proportion of female directors and the average age of the board of directors as the characteristics of the board structure,and it has carried on the theoretical analysis on them.Then,the theory of principal-agent and contract is used to explain the relationship between them and accounting conservatism,and the research hypothesis is put forward.Secondly,the Shenzhen A-share listed company from 2010 to 2016 was selected as a sample.The accrual-cash flow model was used to empirically analyze the influence of the board structure on the accounting conservatism.Finally,according to the empirical test results,some suggestions are put forward for the board governance of listed companies to improve the level of corporate accounting conservatism.The results of this study show that:(1)the size of the board of directors,separation of two positions and the number of special committees all positively influence the accounting conservatism;(2)the proportion of independent directors negatively affects the accounting conservatism;(3)the proportion of female directors and the average age of the board of directors positively influence the accounting conservatism.It can be seen that the establishment of board structure has a great influence on accounting conservatism.A scientific and reasonable board structure is conducive to improving the quality of accounting information.Combined with the empirical results,this paper proposes corresponding suggestions from the perspective of optimizing and improving the structure of the board of directors,in order to improve the level of the firm's accounting conservatism from the angle of the board governance.