Research On The Opinion Shopping At The Ownership Structure

Ownership structure is one of the most essential factors in stock economic system and also is the basis of company management system. The threshold of equity agency has made one unattached third party, outside audit, become important supplementary to internal mechanisms. Therefore the research on opinion shopping according to ownership structure plays a significant role in restricting the listed companies and guiding them to form reasonable ownership mode.In present study which referred to lots of related literatures at home and abroad, the conceptions of ownership structure and opinion shopping were defined theoretically. The structure of ownership was divided into three levels which were ownership attribute, ownership distribution and market environment. Ownership attribute is the identity of share owner as four typical items were described in this study to make more clear research which were state-owned shares, corporate shares, executive stockholdings and institutional investor stockholdings. Ownership distribution refers to the concentration level and balance level of ownership. Meanwhile market environment is primarily concerned with liquidity of ownership. In this study, opinion shopping was regarded as a kind of action process, namely the process in which some companies of opinion shopping intention could get the agreement or admission to successfully harvest audit opinion for low quality by certain means to affect or control the decision of audit. On the basis of such standpoint, opinion shopping was divided into motivation of opinion shopping and result of opinion shopping two steps which were consequently studied on from three levels of ownership structure.In present research, the effect of three levels of ownership structure on motivation of opinion shopping was firstly analyzed theoretically and accordingly seven hypothesizes were proposed. Secondly, quantification of motivation of opinion shopping which is such concealed and could not be directly measured and also estimation of probability for listed companies to get nonstandard audit opinions were realized in the study by construction of a predicting model. The judgment of one listed company whether has motivation to construct opinion shopping was settled by the probability provided by the predicting model. If the probability value was greater than or equal to 0.5, then sample firm was defined to be a motivational one. Otherwise was not motivational. Immediately two logistic regression models were developed by using dummy variable whether the company had motivation of opinion shopping as explained variable and relevant variable of ownership structure as independent variable. The two logistic regression model paid attention to factors affecting motivation of opinion shopping respectively referring to effect of ownership attribute and ownership liquidity and effect of concentration level and balance level of ownership. Judging from the fact, several conclusions were given below. 1. Proportion of state-owned shares in listed company was positively correlated with motivation of opinion shopping. 2. The sum stockholding rate from the second largest holder of listed company to the tenth largest was negatively correlated with motivation of opinion shopping. 3. Institutional investor and executive stockholding rate of listed company was negatively correlated with motivation of opinion shopping, however this kind of relation was not very prominent. 4. The hypothesizes referring to corporate shares, holding rate of the largest shareholder, rate of circulation shares all were not supported with the fact evidence.In the second section which was concerned with effect of ownership structure on result of opinion shopping, the analysis was carried out from the three levels of ownership attribute as well. State-owned shares and executive stockholdings had influence with result of opinion shopping. Meanwhile the other variables had no effect. In the section of fact evidence, selected samples which were estimated to be motivational companies of opinion shopping were separated into two groups by judging from the prediction results compared with the actual type of the given audit opinion that very year, namely successful group of opinion shopping(which meant the actual type of the given audit opinion that very year was standard audit opinion) and unsuccessful group of opinion shopping (which meant the actual type of the given audit opinion that very year was nonstandard audit opinion). The two-side T-test research method was used and the conclusions were: 1. Executive stockholdings could affect result of opinion shopping. 2. State-owned shares, corporate shares, institutional investor stockholdings, holding rate of the largest shareholder(ownership concentration level), the sum stockholding rate from the second largest holder to the tenth largest(ownership balance level) and the circulation of shares wouldn't affect the result of opinion shopping.Finally, on the basis of the above theoretical and empirical result, combined with the actual situation, the following several policy recommendations were listed: 1.We should clear the ownership of state-owned shares and reduce the proportion of state-owned shares. 2. We should develop the institutional investors. 3. We should perfect the mechanism for senior managers of the equity incentive. 4. We should foster competitive shareholders to enhance the balance of shareholders. 5. We should further strengthen the system construction of the securities market. 6. We should strengthen the independence of external audit and enhance the awareness of self-discipline of certified public accountants.