審計委員會的主要功能是監察審計程序及內部控制系統，以改善財務報告的品質。本研究以香港788家上市公司為樣本，並根據沙氏法案的規定，將審計委員會的特性分為規模、專業性、獨立性與活動次數，探討審計委員會各種特性對盈餘管理之影響。實證結果顯示，當審計委員會的規模越大，公司盈餘管理的幅度越大，原因可能為規模大的審計委員會運作的效率較差，因此無法達到監督財務報導的效果。而當審計委員會成員中僅具備律師、或當審計委員會成員皆為獨立董事時，可以有效抑制公司盈餘管理的幅度。而審計委員會成員僅具備會計師與審計委員會開會次數與盈餘管理之關聯性，實證結果並不顯著。
The main function of board is to monitor the audit process and internal control systems, to improve the quality of financial reporting. In this study, we used a sample of 788 listed companies in Hong Kong, and in accordance with the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley, the characteristics of the audit committee is divided into the size, professionalism, independence and the number of activities to explore the various characteristics of the audit committee on earnings management. The empirical results show that the larger the size of the audit committee will get greater the magnitude of the earnings management. It’s probably due to large size of the audit committee of efficiency compared to, it can not reach the effectiveness of the oversight of financial reporting. When members of the audit committee only with the lawyer, or member of the audit committee are independent directors can effectively suppress the magnitude of the earnings management. A member of the audit committee only with the ac-countant and the audit committee meeting frequency and earnings management asso-ciation, the empirical results are not significant.
