Gray (1988) has put forward a hypothesis on how a national accounting environment might reflect the cultural dimensions identified by Hofstede (1980Hofstede ( , 1983. A number of studies have tested Gray's hypothesis, including one by Pourjalali and Meek (1995) which identified a match between changes in cultural dimensions and the accounting environment in Iran following the revolution.In this paper we replicate this work in the context of Spain following the death of Franco in 1975 and the emergence of a democratic constitution in 1978. Specifically, we: 1) Consider Gray's hypothesis built on Hofstede's cultural dimensions and review some empirical tests of the hypotheses. 2) Building on the work of Hofstede and Gray, we: put forward some hypotheses on how we would expect cultural dimensions to change in Spain with the transition to democracy.3) Review developments in accounting in Spain following the transition to democracy, in order to identify how well these fit with our hypotheses.

Comparative national management accounting is a young discipline. A recent survey of management accounting practice in Europe reveals five major issues that contrast across national management accounting practice. In the light of this work we undertook a survey of Spanish management accounts and found that there is declining use of official government guidance on management accounting; the emerging management accounting profession is qualified by university education, and is not generally involved in any professional body; although the literature indicates a strong Anglo‐American influence on modern Spanish management accounting, we found a strong, previously unreported, German influence; a wide range of innovative management accounting approaches have been tried; there is a move towards a planning objective as the focus of the management accountant’s work.

Comparative national management accountingAn analysis of national variations in financial accounting practice emerged as early as 1911 in a lecture by Henry Rand Hatfield (reprinted as Hatfield, 1966). Comprehensive international surveys of national financial reporting practice emerge from the 1970s onwards. (See for example Price Waterhouse 1973Waterhouse , 1975Waterhouse , 1979. By contrast the first comparative published surveys of national management accounting practices only emerge at the regional level, and as recently as 1996, in surveys of Europe by Bhimani (1996) and of Latin America by Lizcano, (1996). The latter text is in Spanish, with a brief English language summary by Blake et al. (1998).Both surveys have involved giving experts on management accounting within the country concerned an outline of areas to be covered and allowing them to describe the management accounting environment in their country in their own way. Bhimani covers

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractSince 1979, China has encouraged foreign investment, particularly through the medium of the joint venture.

States that the Chinese market stands out both for its size and its record of growth. A growing literature identifies a wide range of challenges that must be confronted to launch a successful joint venture. Explores this literature and reports on how one medium-sized European company, Nutrexpa SA, has successfully set up and developed a joint venture in China.