• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.167-187
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• 2014

While Korean GAAP had detailed regulations for the measurement and disclosure of operating income in the past, K-IFRS did not provide specific rules for operating income until 2011. Some firms that adopted K-IFRS before 2011 did not disclose or calculated operating income in an inconsistent manner although operating income is usually considered as one of the core information items to assess firm valuation. Inconsistency in firms' treatment of operating income invoked much criticism from diverse users of financial statement. The Korean Accounting Institute (KAI hereafter) revised the K-IFRS rules relevant to operating income in September 2010 in response to the voices raised by the business community, whereby the operating income number is allowed to be calculated in conformity with the previous K-GAAP. This study was motivated by the revision of K-IFRS and aims to provide a clue on the validity of such policy decision. To achieve the research objective, we test the relative value relevance of the alternative operating income numbers under K-IFRS versus K-GAAP. Our main findings are as follows. The value relevance of operating income reported before K-IFRS is proved to be higher than after K-IFRS. K-IFRS operating income adjusted to the previous K-GAAP has greater explanatory power for market values relative to one calculated under the K-IFRS regime. In an additional analysis, the sample was decomposed according to whether the operating income under K-IFRS is greater than under K-GAAP. The difference in the value relevance of K-IFRS versus K-GAAP operating income is significant only in the subsample consisting of firms which reports higher operating income under K-IFRS compared to K-GAAP. Also, the firms which would have reported negative operating income on a consecutive basis are more likely to have chosen K-IFRS, resulting in higher numbers than otherwise. It is likely that firms facing the threat of delisting due to consecutive operating loss reporting are more likely to have adopted K-IFRS disclosure rules by which they could report higher operating income numbers. To sum up, these results corroborate the limitation inherent in the K-IFRS regarding operating income disclosures. This paper suggests that the recent revision of K-IFRS implemented by KAI is likely to mitigate some of afore-mentioned limitations effectively.