The accounting research community has frequently been described as being both diverse and focused on local issues. At the same time, increasing pressure is being placed on researchers to publish in internationally highly regarded journals. Since faculty evaluations depend on journal rankings, such rankings need to take into account the diversity of the research community. Therefore, this study examines how contextual factors such as a researcher's location and research orientation may influence journal quality perceptions and readership patterns based on an international sample of 1,230 accounting academics. The perceived quality of journals is measured across a number of dimensions, including journal familiarity, average rank position, percent of respondents who classify a journal as top tier, and readership. The results support that a significant variation in journal quality perceptions exists based on a researcher's geographic origin, research orientation, and affiliation with a journal.

Purpose -This paper aims to examine the relevance of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in emerging markets, with special reference to the case of Greece. Design/methodology/approach -This paper adopts a mixed methodology relying primarily on secondary sources such as the relevant legislation, published annual reports and reports on the effects of the application of IFRS by Greek firms as well as the results of a postal survey addressed to the finance managers of the top 100 Greek firms. For the postal survey, a modified version of the questionnaire used by Tyrall et al. was adopted. Findings -Although the Greek environment was not appropriate for IFRS application, participants in the survey believe that their adoption improved the quality of financial reporting. The introduction of IFRS increased the reliability, transparency and comparability of the financial statements.Practical implications -This study provides insights regarding the extent to which the introduction of IFRS influenced the accounting information supplied by firms operating within the European Union. Originality/value -The paper empirically investigates the impact of the introduction of IFRS on the quality of financial statements within the context of emerging markets.

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Several critical studies in accounting have approached the introduction of accounting systems in the public sector in terms of enforcing and sustaining competition-based resource allocation mechanisms. In this study, we reverse the question and ask: why has accounting not been used in certain public bureaucracies as much as it might? We investigate the extent to which accounting systems have been used in the management of the Greek National Health System (ESY) and find that accounting has played a marginal role in its development. Attempting to explain this puzzling feature we first note and then contrast the main underlying features of accounting systems with those of the Greek political system in general, and ESY in particular. Briefly, our explanation is that the historically high politicization that has characterized the Greek political system has tended to over-shadow the economic-cum-managerial dimension of running public bureaucracies, favouring overtly political evaluation criteria of organizational and individual performance. In such an institutional environment, accounting has low symbolic significance and its use does not contribute to enhancing organizational legitimacy - hence its marginal role.

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