本研究以2003年至2007年之上市櫃公司為研究對象，檢測四大會計師事務所合併完成以來，外部審計人員穩健程度與企業盈餘管理程度之關聯性。目前文獻將盈餘管理本質分成兩類：溝通私有資訊與自利動機行為（Watts and Zimmerman, 1986; Holthausen, 1990; Healy and Palepu, 1993,1995; Subramanyam, 1996; Guay, Kothari and Watts, 1996）。本文欲了解外部審計人員在面對管理當局不同盈餘管理動機時，其穩健程度是否具有差異。
首先，本文先行完整剖析盈餘管理之本質，並進一步根據公司當期相對績效（與同業平均相比），劃分管理當局誘因為調高或調降報導盈餘兩類誘因，探討在任何情況下是否四大審計人員都會較非四大審計人員保持較高的穩健態度。其次，使用正、負股票報酬和盈餘之間的關係來衡量穩健，俾了解公司績效（股票報酬）與審計人員穩健之關係。最後，過去研究並未處理自我選擇問題，其實證結果可能受到限制。因此本研究欲透過自我選擇模型計量分析，檢驗外部審計人員在監督上市櫃公司盈餘管理的能力時，其在緩和企業盈餘管理的角色。
本研究實證結果發現，在控制自我選擇問題後，審計品質與盈餘管理之關係依然存在，此意即審計品質較高的審計人員，會報導較低的裁量性應計數（盈餘管理代理變數）。此外，實證結果也顯示：（1）四大審計人員只有在查核績效差公司時，其穩健程度才會高於非四大審計人員；在查核績效佳公司時，兩者並無顯著差異。（2）在管理當局有自利動機情況下，不論是調高或調降盈餘誘因，四大審計人員穩健程度皆高於非四大審計人員；當管理當局有溝通私有資訊動機時，不論是調高或調降盈餘誘因，四大審計人員穩健程度皆高於非四大審計人員。此研究結果意涵代表四大審計人員不會探究其客戶之盈餘管理本質為何，而是為求自保而使用較多穩健的會計政策，使客戶始終保有較低的盈餘數字，此一論點與過去文獻所提之聲譽假說與深口袋假說相符，並強烈支持本文結論：審計人員在監督企業經理人之盈餘管理行為時，皆傾向採取保守態度，特別是四大審計人員更是如此。

In this study I examine the relationship between the level of external auditors’ conservatism and earnings management after Big 4 CPA firms have merged for a sample of listed firms in Taiwan from 2003 to 2007. There are two hypotheses about managerial discretion in the literature：information-signaling and opportunistic accrual management. In this paper, we investigate whether, and how, the level of audit conservatism differentiation between Big 4 and non-Big 4 auditors is influenced by many reporting incentives faced by corporate managers .
First, we analysis the reason of managerial discretion, and further divide managers’ incentives to increase or decrease reported earnings on the basis of current relative performance, whether Big 4 auditors always retain higher level of conservatism than non-Big 4 auditors in any cases is the major question of my study. Furthermore, we distinguish auditors’ conservatism between client companies with good and bad financial performance. Finally, our study use a self-selection analysis to test external auditors limit managers’ ability to make earnings management to reexamine the external auditors’ role on alleviating corporate earnings management.
We find that even in the case of controlling the self-selection problem, the relationship between audit quality and earnings management still holds. The results imply that higher quality auditors can report a lower degree of discretionary accruals included in their client’s pre-audit earnings. The empirical results are summarized as follows：（1） Big 4 clients report more conservative accounting earnings than non-Big 4 clients only when the clients are performing poorly（2）Big 4 auditors reduce more opportunistic accruals and information-signaling accruals in either the cases of firms with income-increasing incentive or income-decreasing incentive. The evidence strongly supports that auditors, especially the Big 4 auditors, tend to take more conservative actions on monitoring mangers’ earnings management behavior.

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