Premium
Attitudes towards Uniform Accounting: Cultural or Economic Phenomena?
Author(s) -
Roberts Clare B.,
Salter Stephen B.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of international financial management and accounting
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.818
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1467-646X
pISSN - 0954-1314
DOI - 10.1111/1467-646x.00047
Subject(s) - accounting , extant taxon , audit , de facto , variety (cybernetics) , flexibility (engineering) , dimension (graph theory) , business , stock (firearms) , economics , political science , law , management , mathematics , evolutionary biology , artificial intelligence , computer science , pure mathematics , biology , mechanical engineering , engineering
The existing literature suggests that uniformity versus flexibility is a key dimension of differentiation in cross‐national financial reporting practices. However, the issue of what drives attitudes towards uniformity has not been explored. Drawing upon a variety of existing studies, this study explores the attitudes of “Big 6” auditors in 23 countries towards rules mandating a single treatment across 14 issues. The study finds that auditors are in favor of a single mandated treatment in the majority of cases and that support for such rules is affected by both culture and the importance of the domestic stock market to the country. These results hold true even after the influence of extant practice or the level of uniformity of current practice is controlled for. Relatively higher levels of uniformity in de facto financial reporting practices and relatively stronger support for increased uniformity were both found in many of those countries which are traditionally thought of as having more flexible financial accounting systems.