Early Childhood Differences, Managerial Characteristics, and Earnings Management

形成個人特質的過程錯綜複雜，除了與生俱來之特質外，也會經後天環境與經驗的差異而有所不同。由於國民義務教育之規定，出生月份之差異會影響入學時點而造成同一學期中的年齡差距，過去文獻指出該差異會影響其學業的表現以及經歷的養成。而經理人之個人特質、成長背景等因素會影響其經營企業之風格也有許多學者進行研究，其中，過去研究顯示出生月份的確會因不同事件的切割而對個人產生不同面向的關聯性。因此本研究想延伸先前之文獻結果，進一步了解是否經理人出生月份所影響其入學年齡之差異，會造就不同之個人特質，進而影響其進行盈餘管理之差異。 本研究利用以日本東京證券交易所上市公司之經理人(社長)為研究對象，並依照日本國民教育法4月1日開學時年滿六歲應入學之規定，以三月份及四月份出生之經理人做為幼兒時期成長差異衡量方式，測試其在經營企業上盈餘管理的方式是否有顯著差異。本研究實證結果發現，出生於四月份之經理人傾向採用減少裁量性費用進行實質盈餘管理，出生於三月份之經理人則與應計項目之盈餘管理為負相關，顯示出生於三月份之經理人較不會進行盈餘管理。Current education system requests children to enter primary school at the age of 6. However, schools uniformly accept entering students only once a year. Therefore, the age differences between the oldest children the youngest children in the same school year could be as large as 12 months. Prior researchers study the relationship between backgrounds, characteristics, psychological traits of the board members, CEO and top management teams and the corporate performance. In this study, we investigate if the managers born in different month of the year have different styles in managing earnings. Our results indicate that managers born in April most likely to conduct real earnings management by decreasing discretionary expenses. Managers born in March are most unlikely to conduct accruals-based earnings management