「產業競賽誘因」是指CEO薪酬與同產業中最高薪CEO間薪酬的差異，當此薪酬差異越大時，CEO可能會為了在人力市場中有升遷的機會而努力提升公司績效，使CEO與股東利益一致；然而，也可能反而促使CEO為了自身利益而扭曲財報，增加代理問題。因此，本研究想探討就投資者的認知而言，產業競賽誘因對盈餘品質是否會造成影響。樣本期間為1992年至2019年，研究結果發現產業競賽誘因會增加盈餘反應係數，也代表著產業競賽誘因會強化投資者認知的盈餘品質。此外，橫斷面分析的結果，在代理問題較嚴重的情況下，產業競賽誘因增加盈餘反應係數的效果越明顯，這代表投資者認為產業競賽誘因會提供外部激勵誘因，降低代理問題，提升財報認知的可信度。

This study empirically assesses the relationship between industry tournament incentives (IT) and investors’ perception of the earnings quality. “Industry tournament incentive” is the compensation difference between the CEO at the firm of interest and the maximal CEO compensation among the same industry. When the compensation gap is greater, CEOs have more motivation to increase firm performance in order to improve their reputation in the external labor market. This effect aligns CEOs’ interest with those of shareholders and thus reduce agency problems. Nonetheless, industry tournament incentives may as well trigger greater agency problems since CEOs might engage in more earnings management and fraudulent financial disclosure. Empirical evidence shows that industry tournament incentives positively increase earnings response coefficient which means that IT enhances investors’ perception of the earnings quality. Furthermore, we find that this outcome is more prominent among firms with greater agency problems. This suggests that industry tournament incentives provide exterior motives to reduce agency problems and thus increase the credibility of financial statements.

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