본 연구는 상품시장 차원에서의 경쟁 정도 및 기업의 시장지배력이 경영자의 회계선택의 일환으로 여겨지는 실제 이익조정(real earnings management) 행태에 어떤 영향을 미치는지를 규명하고자 다양한 측면에서 실증분석을 수행하였다. 분석 결과를 요약하면 다음과 같다. 첫째, 독점도가 높은 산업에 속한(산업 내 경쟁정도가 낮은 산업에 속한) 기업일수록 실제 이익조정을 통해 이익을 상향조정하고자 하는 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 내부 기업지배구조가 건전할수록 산업집중도가 실제 이익조정에 미치는 양(+)의 영향을 감소시키는 것으로 나타났다. 이는 내부 기업지배구조와 외부 기업지배구조가 상호작용을 통해 이익조정을 감소시키는 규율이 작동하게 됨을 의미한다고 볼 수 있다. 추가 분석을 통해, 실제 이익조정과 발생액 이익조정 간에 보완 관계가 존재하는데, 이러한 보완관계는 특히 실제 이익조정과 비기대 재량적 발생액과의 관계에서 강하게 관찰됨을 확인하였다. 또한, 산업 내 경쟁정도가 낮아질수록(산업집중도가 높아질수록) 기업들이 실제 이익조정을 발생액 이익조정보다 더 선호함을 확인하였다. 본 연구는 산업 내 경쟁정도가 기업의 실제 이익조정 행위에 미치는 영향을 상세히 분석함으로써 자본시장의 이해관계자들에게 의미있는 시사점을 제공하고 있다. 본 연구결과를 통해, 재무분석가는 기업에 대한 예측 정보 제공시 기업이 속한 산업의 경쟁정도가 이익조정 행태에 미치는 영향에 대해서 더 많은 주의를 기울여야 할 것이며, 투자자는 투자 의사결정 과정에서 재무분석가의 예측정보를 사용하거나 직접 회계정보를 이용할 때 해당 기업이 속한 산업의 시장구조에 주의를 기울여야 한다는 시사점을 제공할 것으로 기대한다. 또한, 규제기관에게는 경쟁제한적 시장구조를 개선하는 것이 시장 전체의 후생 극대화 측면뿐만 아니라 자본시장의 정보의 투명성 제고에도 긍정적인 영향을 미칠 수 있다는 시사점을 제공한다.

This study is to find out how market competition in the product market affects real earnings management(REM) in a company using the empirical analysis. The market is where the specific commodity and services are bought and sold. As there are the behaviors trying to buy and sell things, there occurs the relation between people for getting the best conditions or profits. As such, the motive for causing the demand and supply in the market is the pursuit for profit. The accounting information is the result of the strategic execution under the competition of product market. Therefore, behaviors related to the generation of a firm`s accounting information can be different according to the market competition where the company belongs to. Nonetheless, there is no sufficient research on companies` behavior regarding the accounting side depending on market competition. So, this study will focus on how market competition would affect real earnings management, which is deemed to be an option of accounting choice made by manager. Real earnings management is made in a way that the specific profit target is met by changing the period and size of production, sale of products, investment and financial activities. As it directly affects the actual allocation of resources for the company, it can be deemed as one of corporate strategy. Accordingly, it can be predicted that market competition in an industry, which is one of the external corporate governance structure significantly affects real earnings management of the company. Thus, the study was conducted on how market competition in an industry would affect the behavior of producing the accounting information or particularly real earnings management. The study was conducted on the listed companies having the fiscal year ending in December except banking companies. The study was made on 4,583 companies- year from 2002 to 2010. The results of analysis are as follows. First, the industry having higher level of monopoly (low competition) have more intention of raising profit through real earnings management. This result shows that in the Korean management environment, the more monopolistic an industry is (or lower competition in the industry), the companies in the industry are likely to use real earnings management as in that case the regulatory agencies are hard to catch real earnings management. In addition, this result can be explained based on the prior literature which shows that the more competitive the industry is, the stronger the external governance`s effect becomes, thus decreasing real earnings management. Second, the better the internal corporate governance of the company is, the weaker the relation between industrial concentration and real earnings management becomes. This can be said that the internal corporate governance and external corporate governance interact in a way that they decrease earnings management. The additional analysis showed that there are the complementary relation between real earnings management and accrual earningsmanagement(discretionary accruals). The complementary relation was found to be strong, particularly in the relation between real earnings management and the unexpected part of accrual earnings management. In addition, as the lower the market competition(the higher the industrial concentration) in the industry becomes, the more the company prefers real earnings management to accrual earnings management. This study is expected to provide a valuable implications to the stakeholders in capital market by analysing the effect of market competition in the industry on real earnings management. Based on the findings of this study, the financial analysts should pay close attention to the effects of market competition on real earnings management in the process of providing predictive information of companies. Also, investors would be careful in using such predictive information and direct accounting information in the investment decision-making process. Additionally, regulatory agencies may use the information on the level of market competition of each firm in deciding priorities in monitoring. This study shows the interesting results through the empirical analysis. But there are still measurement error regarding test variables and estimated variables. The subsequent study shall be done to make up for the limitations.