...Hector Perera 1, Chris Patel 2 Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance, Faculty of Business and Economics, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Convergence German Commercial Code (Handelsgesetzbuch) International Financial Reporting Standards Act to Modernize Accounting Law (Bilanzrechtsmodernisierungsgesetz) Classification of accounting systems a b s t r a c t Classification techniques based on one or few dimensions are widely used in research studies and textbooks to explain and predict the development of accounting systems internationally. However, their usefulness in international accounting has been limited in today's globalized world. For example, in the context of the EU, IFRS are required for consolidated accounting, while national accounting systems continue to be the dominant system for unconsolidated accounting in many countries. Using Germany as a case study, the objective of this paper is to examine whether Germany can still be classified within the Continental European model of accounting following the Act to Modernize Accounting Law (Bilanzrechts-modernisierungsgesetz — BilMoG), which was promulgated on May 29, 2009. This Act introduced some major reforms to the German Commercial Code (Handelsgesetzbuch — HGB), such as removing the close connection to tax rules and introducing new recognition and valuation regulations, which changed traditional principles of orderly accounting (Grundsätze...
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...education systems, administration, planning and policy,costs and finances, evaluation of higher education, issues related to staff and students, cooperation, mobility and equivalences of degrees, curricula, teaching methods and learning processes. It is available in the UNESCO CD-ROM “UNESCO DATABASES” (current ed: 1999). List of Participants in the HEDBIB database International Association of Universities (IAU) IAU/UNESCO Information Centre on Higher Education Coordinating Agency and Bibliographical Reference Service Elzbieta Karwat - Head Librarian Unesco House, 1, rue Miollis, 75732 Paris cedex 15, France karwat.iau@unesco.org http://www.unesco.org/iau ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education (ERIC) 1100 West Street, Second Floor, Laurel, Maryland 20707-3598, USA http://www.gwu.edu/~eriche UNESCO Headquarters in Paris 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07, France s.fernandez-lauro@unesco.org http://www.unesco.org UNESCO European Centre for Higher Education (CEPES) Str Stirbei Voda 39, R-70732 Bucharest, Romania bucharest@unesco.org http://www.cepes.ro UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC) Apartado postal 68.394, Caracas 1062-A,...
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...International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS): Pros and Cons for Investors by Ray Ball* Sidney Davidson Professor of Accounting Graduate School of Business University of Chicago 5807 S. Woodlawn Ave Chicago, IL 60637 Tel. (773) 834 5941 ray.ball@gsb.uchicago.edu Acknowledgments This paper is based on the PD Leake Lecture delivered on 8 September 2005 at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, which can be accessed at http://www.icaew.co.uk/cbp/index.cfm. It draws extensively on the framework in Ball (1995) and benefited from comments by Steve Zeff. Financial support from the PD Leake Trust and the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago is gratefully acknowledged. 1 Abstract Accounting in shaped by economic and political forces. It follows that increased worldwide integration of both markets and politics (driven by reductions in communications and information processing costs) makes increased integration of financial reporting standards and practice almost inevitable. But most market and political forces will remain local for the foreseeable future, so it is unclear how much convergence in actual financial reporting practice will (or should) occur. Furthermore, there is little settled theory or evidence on which to build an assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of uniform accounting rules within a country, let alone internationally. The pros and cons of IFRS therefore are somewhat conjectural, the unbridled enthusiasm...
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...This article was downloaded by: [Library Services City University London] On: 26 July 2013, At: 08:32 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Accounting and Business Research Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rabr20 International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS): pros and cons for investors Ray Ball a a University of Chicago Published online: 28 Feb 2012. To cite this article: Ray Ball (2006) International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS): pros and cons for investors, Accounting and Business Research, 36:sup1, 5-27, DOI: 10.1080/00014788.2006.9730040 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00014788.2006.9730040 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information...
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...CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the Study The need for Environmental Accounting has become the concern and focus of nations and responsible corporate managements. It became one of the foremost issues on the agenda of nations and businesses earlier in the 1990s and the reasons for this were varied emanating from both within and outside of the firm and particularly at the global level (Okoye and Ngwakwe:2004:220-235). A lot of government enactments, laws and regulations on environmental protection have been made in several nations of the world. In the light of the awakening to environment protection, various laws and regulations such as the Environmental Impact Assessment Act, 1992 have been enacted. These require corporate managements to consider the environmental implications of all internal decisions of their managements. Also, all organizations monitored by environmental policy agencies in Kenya are expected to demonstrate much consideration in decision making. Environmentalists agree that it could be more cost effective and beneficial for companies to acquire pollution prevention or clean technology than those of pollution clean-up. It is also observed that in environmental regulations, there is a shift from the ‘command and control’ approach to market-driven forms in which pollution prevention alternatives are replacing pollution cleaning approach. It follows therefore, that determining the appropriate pollution prevention approach may lead to additional decisions...
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...é The Effects of Mandatory IFRS Adoption in the EU: A Review of Empirical Research October 2014 Information for Better Markets An initiative from the ICAEW Financial Reporting Faculty The Effects of Mandatory IFRS Adoption in the EU: A Review of Empirical Research forms part of the Information for Better Markets thought leadership programme of ICAEW’s Financial Reporting Faculty. ICAEW operates under a Royal Charter, working in the public interest. As a world leading professional accountancy body, ICAEW provides leadership and practical support to over 142,000 members in more than 160 countries, working with governments, regulators and industry to ensure the highest standards are maintained. The ICAEW Financial Reporting Faculty provides its members with practical assistance and support with IFRS, UK GAAP and other aspects of business reporting. It also comments on business reporting issues on behalf of ICAEW to standard setters and regulators. Its Information for Better Markets thought leadership programme subjects key questions in business reporting to careful and impartial analysis so as to help achieve practical solutions to complex problems. The programme focuses on three key themes: disclosure, measurement and regulation. We welcome comments and enquiries on this report and on the other aspects of the Information for Better Markets programme. To contact us, please email bettermarkets@icaew.com. © ICAEW 2014 All rights reserved. If you want...
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...The European Accounting Review 2002, 11:1, 119–151 Accounting and capital markets: a survey of the European evidence Pascal Dumontier ` Pierre Mendes-France University, Grenoble Bernard Raffournier University of Geneva ABSTRACT The relationship between accounting information and capital markets has been the subject of numerous studies, especially in the US. The purpose of this article is to examine the corresponding evidence in Europe. This review classi es the European literature into three groups: studies of the market reaction to newly released accounting information; studies of the long-term association between stock returns and accounting numbers; studies devoted to the use of accounting data by investors and to the impact of market pressure on accounting choices. The paper reviews and summarizes the main results related to each of these topics. It also addresses some methodological issues and provides suggestions for future research. 1. INTRODUCTION Since the pioneering work of Ball and Brown (1968), the relationship between accounting information and capital markets has attracted considerable attention, to the point that it is probably one of the most popular issues in the accounting literature. The interest for this subject is legitimate, given the generally accepted statement that accounting gures are aimed at providing investors with relevant information for their investment decisions. Even if accounting data are used in various contexts such as the contracting...
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...A World Culture of Schooling? Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt Introductory chapter to Anderson-Levitt, Kathryn, Ed. 2003 Local Meanings, Global Schooling: Anthropology and World Culture Theory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 1 Is there one global culture of schooling, or many? Are school systems around the world diverging from their original European sources, or are they converging toward a single model?i This book opens a dialogue between two very different perspectives on schooling around the world. On the one hand, anthropologists and many scholars in comparative education emphasize national variation, not to mention variation from district to district and from classroom to classroom. From their point of view, the nearly 200 national school systems in the world today represent some 200 different and diverging cultures of schooling. On the other hand, sociology’s “institutionalists” or world culture theorists argue that not only has the model of modern mass education spread from a common source, but that schools around the world are becoming more similar over time.ii According to world culture theory, rather than diverging, schools are converging toward a single global model. This question matters to anthropologists because when we look at globalization— the movement of people, money and ideas across the entire world in unprecedented volume—we wonder whether it really means that the world is becoming more homogeneous. Are we creating a global culture (a “McWorld” for the...
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...3247960261 Accounting Capstone: Senior Seminar in Accounting ACC 499 005016 Winter Semester 2008 Submitted to Professor Tee Thein March 16, 2008 Dedication and Acknowledgement I would like to take this time to thank my husband, George, for all his support over this last ten weeks. For graciously doing the laundry, vacuuming, dusting, grocery shopping, meal preparing, and dishes so I had time complete the needed research for my paper. I appreciate the sacrifices you made to support me in my efforts of obtaining a Bachelors Degree in Accounting. Table of Contents Page Abstract 5 Chapter 1: Introduction 6 1.1 Background 6 1.2 Problem 7 1.3 Purpose 7 1.4 Scope 8 Chapter 2: Review of Literature 9 Chapter 3: Methodologies 12 3.1 Perspective 12 3.2 Research Procedure 12 Chapter 4: Development of Accounting Principles 17 4.1 History of Accounting Differences 17 4.1.1 Ancient Recordkeeping 17 4.1.2 Double-Entry Accounting 19 4.1.3 Beyond the Industrial Revolution 19 4.2 Influences on Accounting Standards 20 4.2.1 Culture 21 4.2.2 Legal System...
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...Journal of Retailing 87 (3, 2011) 253–268 Franchising Research Frontiers for the Twenty-First Century Rajiv P. Dant a,∗ , Marko Grünhagen b,1 , Josef Windsperger c,2 a Michael F. Price College of Business, The University of Oklahoma, 307 West Brooks, Norman, OK 73019-4001, USA b Eastern Illinois University, School of Business, 4002 Lumpkin Hall, Charleston, IL 61920, USA c Center of Business Studies, University of Vienna, Brünner Strasse 72, A-1210 Vienna, Austria Abstract About four decades ago, during the formative years of the franchising industry, visionary authors like Oxenfeldt and Kelly (1968) and Ozanne and Hunt (1971) proposed a rich slate of research agenda which still continues to guide some of the contemporary scholarship in the franchising domain. This article (1) explicates some of the unique features of the franchising context that presumably inspired these pioneering authors, (2) discusses four established elements of ontology unique to franchising and isolates the remaining research gaps therein, (3) specifies a new slate of more contemporary research agenda for future scholarship, and (4) concludes with a brief discussion of the ten articles featured in this Special Issue of the Journal of Retailing dedicated to the theme of Franchising and Retailing. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Inc on behalf of New York University. Keywords: Franchising Research Agenda; Research Frontiers; Mixed Motives Context; Asymmetrical Power Setting; Twenty-First Century ...
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...Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 24, Number 1—Winter 2010—Pages 93–118 Did Fair-Value Accounting Contribute to the Financial Crisis? Christian Laux and Christian Leuz I n its pure form, fair-value accounting involves reporting assets and liabilities on the balance sheet at fair value and recognizing changes in fair value as gains and losses in the income statement. When market prices are used to determine fair value, fair-value accounting is also called mark-to-market accounting. Some critics argue that fair-value accounting exacerbated the severity of the 2008 financial crisis. The main allegations are that fair-value accounting contributes to excessive leverage in boom periods and leads to excessive write-downs in busts. The write-downs due to falling market prices deplete bank capital and set off a downward spiral, as banks are forced to sell assets at “fire sale” prices, which in turn can lead to contagion as prices from asset fire sales of one bank become relevant for other banks. These arguments are often taken at face value, but evidence on problems created by fair-value accounting is rarely provided. We discuss these arguments and examine descriptive and empirical evidence that sheds light on the role of fair-value accounting for U.S. banks in the crisis. While large losses can clearly cause problems for banks and other financial institutions, the relevant question for our article is whether reporting these losses under fair-value accounting created additional...
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...Challenges in Managing and Preventing Sexual Harassment in a Culturally Diverse Workplace. In recent years the topic of sexual harassment has become one of the most talked about issues in the press. Sexual harassment is a topical problem for many employees that not only leads to discrimination in labor, loss in wages, low productivity and stress, but it also influence the general atmosphere of lawlessness and violence against the comfort of other human beings. The act sexual harassment creates a hostile tense working environment. In this paper we will discuss the challenges in managing and preventing sexual harassment in a culturally diverse workplace. We will also discuss some cases of reported sexual harassment that has occurred in different countries, the laws against sexual harassment and the affect it has on companies as a whole. The global trend to eliminate any forms of sexual harassment in the field of labor relations is one of the priorities of modern day society. Companies around the world face the task of ensuring there are decent working conditions for employees. These conditions include one free from sexual harassment. When incorporating prevention measures some cultures are harder to implement for than others. Because of this, cross-cultural companies are considered difficult to management because of the peculiarities of the mentality and the differences in cultural practices, but regardless if the structure, sexual harassment requires a solution in order...
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...Using Facebook to Teach Rhetorical Analysis Jane Mathison Fife The attraction of Facebook is a puzzle to many people over the age of thirtyfive, and that includes most college faculty. Yet students confess to spending significant amounts of time on Facebook, sometimes hours a day. If you teach in a computer classroom, you have probably observed students using Facebook when you walk in the room. Literacy practices that fall outside the realm of traditional academic writing, like Facebook, can easily be seen as a threat to print literacy by teachers, especially when they sneak into the classroom uninvited as students check their Facebook profiles instead of participating in class discussions and activities. This common reaction reflects James King and David O’Brien’s (2002: 42) characterization of the dichotomy teachers often perceive between school and nonschool literacy activities (although they are not referring to Facebook specifically): “From teachers’ perspectives, all of these presumably pleasurable experiences with multimedia detract from students’ engagement with their real work. Within the classroom economy technology work is time off task; it is classified as a sort of leisure recreational activity.” This dichotomy can be broken down, though; students’ enthusiasm for and immersion in these nonacademic literacies can be used to complement their learning of critical inquiry and traditional academic concepts like rhetorical analysis. Although they read these texts daily...
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...Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 24, Number 1—Winter 2010—Pages 93–118 Did Fair-Value Accounting Contribute to the Financial Crisis? Christian Laux and Christian Leuz I n its pure form, fair-value accounting involves reporting assets and liabilities on the balance sheet at fair value and recognizing changes in fair value as gains and losses in the income statement. When market prices are used to determine fair value, fair-value accounting is also called mark-to-market accounting. Some critics argue that fair-value accounting exacerbated the severity of the 2008 financial crisis. The main allegations are that fair-value accounting contributes to excessive leverage in boom periods and leads to excessive write-downs in busts. The write-downs due to falling market prices deplete bank capital and set off a downward spiral, as banks are forced to sell assets at “fire sale” prices, which in turn can lead to contagion as prices from asset fire sales of one bank become relevant for other banks. These arguments are often taken at face value, but evidence on problems created by fair-value accounting is rarely provided. We discuss these arguments and examine descriptive and empirical evidence that sheds light on the role of fair-value accounting for U.S. banks in the crisis. While large losses can clearly cause problems for banks and other financial institutions, the relevant question for our article is whether reporting these losses under fair-value accounting...
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...been more important. Yet time and time again we see the value of marketing being questioned and marketing budgets cut. White Paper: I believe marketing is essential to the success of organisations. However, sometimes marketers are their own worst enemy, failing to account for their often considerable Marketing’s decline: budgets, falling back on dull and uninspiring campaigns, and floundering when questioned on the financial impact of their strategies. a wild exaggeration? Dr Evmorfia Argyriou, Aston Business School, UK This White Paper, the result of research completed for The Professor Peter Leeflang, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands Institute by Aston Business School, reveals how marketers themselves perceive their role and importantly how they are Professor John Saunders, Aston Business School, UK and AUDENCIA Grade École, Nantes, France perceived by their colleagues in the finance department. Professor Peter Verhoef, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands Whilst marketing is unquestionably central to business success – with marketing orientation and the influence of marketing within a firm critical to business performance – our Paper shows that marketers must overcome their own Contents weaknesses if they are to prove the value they add and earn the respect of their peers. 2 Marketing’s decline? 4 Marketing now David Thorp Director of Research and Professional Development 6 Marketing is loved! The Chartered Institute of Marketing 7 Calling our bluff 8 Stuck in the...
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