Influential factors of country's accounting system development

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6. Five factors are often mentioned as affecting a country’s accounting practices: (a) legal system, (b) taxation, (c) providers of financing, (d) inflation, and (e) political and economic ties.

Required:

Consider your home country. Identify which of these factors has had the strongest influence on the development of accounting in your country. Provide specific examples to support your position.

7. As noted in the chapter, diversity in accounting practice across countries generates problems for a number of different groups.

Required:

Answer the following questions and provide explanations for your answers.

a. Which is the greatest problem arising from worldwide accounting diversity?

b. Which group is most affected by worldwide accounting diversity?

c. Which group can most easily deal with the problems associated with accounting diversity?

8. Various attempts have been made to reduce the accounting diversity that exists internationally. This process is known as convergence and is discussed in more detail in Chapter 3. The ultimate form of convergence would be a world in which all countries followed a similar set of financial reporting rules and practices.

Required:

Consider each of the following factors that contribute to existing accounting diversity as described in this chapter:

· Legal system

· Taxation

· Providers of financing

· Inflation

· Political and economic ties

· Culture

Which factor do you believe represents the greatest impediment to the international convergence of accounting? Which factor do you believe creates the smallest impediment to convergence? Explain your reasoning.

Case 2-1

The Impact of Culture on Conservatism

PART I

The framework created by Professor Sidney Gray in 1988 to explain the development of a country’s accounting system is presented in the chapter in Exhibit 2.8. Gray theorized that culture has an impact on a country’s accounting system through its influence on accounting values. Focusing on that part of a country’s

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accounting system comprised of financial reporting rules and practices, the model can be visualized as follows:

In short, cultural values shared by members of a society influence the accounting values shared by members of the accounting subculture. The shared values of the accounting subculture in turn affect the financial reporting rules and practices found within a country.

With respect to the accounting value of conservatism, Gray hypothesized that the higher a country ranks on the cultural dimensions of uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation, and the lower it ranks in terms of individualism and masculinity, then the more likely it is to rank highly in terms of conservatism. Conservatism is a preference for a cautious approach to measurement. Conservatism is manifested in a country’s accounting system through a tendency to defer recognition of assets and items that increase net income and a tendency to accelerate the recognition of liabilities and items that decrease net income. One example of conservatism in practice would be a rule that requires an unrealized contingent liability to be recognized when it is probable that an outflow of future resources will arise but does not allow the recognition of an unrealized contingent asset under any circumstances.