| After nearly 30 years of development,China’s capital market has made remarkable achievements.However,in sharp contrast,financial fraud and information disclosure violation of listed companies emerge in an endless stream.Which factors will affect the quality of accounting information and how to effectively improve the quality of accounting information have been a hot issue in academic and practical.But the traditional company theory regards managers as rational persons who respond to market signals independently.Therefore,accounting information is mainly regarded as the result of independent decision by the company,ignoring the mutual and cross influence between companies.The rise of social economics makes people have a new understanding on many issues.Social economic theory believes that human are social animals,and people do not make their own optimization decisions by themselves,but are influenced by similar people around them.Therefore,this paper brings peer effects from the sociology into the analysis of accounting information quality of listed companies,and attempts to review the behavior motivation of accounting information decisions in listed companies on the perspective of the influence of group behavior on individual behavior.By doing so,this paper can provide a more reasonable explanation on the current situation of the generally low quality of accounting information in the capital market.To be specific,firstly,this paper adopts the common analyst-based method to define peer firms.On this basis,the social network interaction model is used to solve the difficulties in the identification of peer effects,and then the existence of peer effects in accounting information quality is confirmed.Next,based on the theory of social norms,with the help of experiment research method in experiment economics,the mechanism of this peer effects is revealed.Then,based on the formation mechanism and with the social control theory,the regulatory effect of internal audit and manager’s personality traits on this peer effects is further studied by using experimental research method.Finally,the economic consequences of this peer effects are examined from the aspect of company value in the current and future periods.On the basis of the above research,this paper summarizes and puts forward some suggestions.The research conclusion shows that:(1)Peer effects exist in the accounting information decision of listed companies in China,that is,when the peer firms manipulate accounting information,the company tends to manipulate accounting information.Peer effects lead to the spread of low-quality accounting information,resulting in the social multiplier effect.(2)Mechanism analysis shows that: The manipulation of accounting information of the peer companies changes the managers’ cognition about the social norms related to accounting information manipulation.By observing the behavior of others companies,managers will think that the current social norms are relatively dishonest,and the manipulation of accounting information is appropriate and acceptable.And because managers have changed their perception of social norms,believing in that the manipulation of accounting information is acceptable,this kind of internalized belief will reduce their psychological cost of the manipulation,so managers are more easily to manipulate accounting information.(3)Internal audit and managers’ personality traits represented by Machiavellianism have a positive regulating effect on the peer effects in accounting information quality.In addition,they have a synergistic regulating effect.When there is internal audit and managers’ Machiavellianism level is high,the peer effects are more obvious.(4)The peer effects of accounting information quality can damage the current value of the company,and it will continue to damage the value of the company in the next period.This paper offers several important contributions to the literature as follows:(1)Bringing peer effects from the sociology into the analysis of accounting information quality of listed companies,this paper is helpful to better understand the behavior motivation of accounting information decision-making of listed companies from a new perspective,and also provides a new explanation for the current situation of generally low quality of accounting information in the capital market.(2)Constructing the network matrix of peer relationship based on whether the companies are peers,this paper solves the difficulties of identifying peer effects based on social network interaction model,which can provide new methods and new ideas for the study of peer effects,strategic interaction and imitation behavior among companies in the capital market.(3)On the basis of verifying the existence of peer effects in the accounting information quality of listed companies,this paper further studies its generating mechanism and influencing factors with the help of experiment research.By this way,this paper will help to better understand the phenomenon of peer effects in accounting information quality of listed companies,and also deepen the existing literature. |
