Gauging the impact of country-specific values on the acceptability of global management accounting principles

Abstract

The implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in many countries brings with it the necessity to upgrade and further train in-company private accountants to comply with these new external reporting requirements. As part of this process, it is assumed that company accountants will also be expected to perform the internal management accounting functions of the firm in a more efficient and effective manner in accordance with internationally recognized best practices. The full range of management accounting activities includes cost and profitability analysis and reporting, decision support analysis, and a variety of activities relating to the planning and budgeting process. It has previously been observed that a country’s cultural and accounting values can have an impact on the success of its IFRS implementation. (Borker D. R., 2013) Furthermore, a more recent study indicates the likelihood that Global Management Accounting Principles (GMAP) as currently proposed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), may also be found more or less acceptable based on country specific cultural and accounting values. (Borker D. R., Manuscript) This paper addresses the possible impact of such values on the management accounting activities of a firm. Specifically, it examines the potential impact on GMAP acceptability by different countries. Using Hofstede cultural values (Hofstede, 1980), and a set of accounting values based on Gray’s original work (Gray, 1988), expanded to include other socio-cultural factors, (Borker D. R., 2014) an analysis is conducted based on a worldwide twelve-country sample. Management Accounting standards, discussed here, are based the Global Management Accounting Principles proposed the AICPA and CIMA. Results of the analysis indicate that cultural and accounting values of individual countries may have a differential impact of the acceptability and success of firms in implementing international management accounting standards.