Cultural impact on the harmonisation of Russian Accounting Standards with the International Financial Reporting Standards

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore cultural impact on the harmonisation of Russian Accounting Standards with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Design/methodology/approach -A theoretical review established that differences still exist between the two sets of accounting standards. For decades, Russia was a socialist state of planned economy. Accounting was a tool of centralised control, and accountants had a job of gathering information for statistical purposes of the government and tax authorities. This led to the development of a "Soviet culture" mindset. Accountants saw their jobs as following prescribed rules. Accounting is seen by Hofstede as a field in which historically developed practices are more important than laws of nature. It is therefore expected that accounting rules and the way they are applied will vary among different national cultures. Hence, Gray tried to explore how Hofstede's national cultural dimensions may explain international differences in accounting. With respect to past research in this area, Nobes argued that "national accounting traditions are likely to continue into consolidated reporting where scope for this exists within IFRS rules". Ding et al. investigated the role of a country's culture and legal origin as an explanation for the differences between local Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and IAS as they were in 2001. The study gathered 53 Russian accountants' attitudes towards reporting under harmonised Russian Accounting Standards through semi structured interviews. Findings -The findings supported the theoretical view of a "Soviet culture" which has an impact on harmonisation of Russian Accounting Standards with the IFRS. Russia's high rankings in such cultural dimensions as power distance, uncertainty avoidance and collectivism have contributed to the development of certain preferences among Russian accountants. Those preferences were for statutory control, uniformity, conservatism and secrecy. Further findings indicate that accountants in Russia display reluctance to disclose financial information to the external users. One of the main reasons was found to be fear of disclosing too much information to competitors. Based on these findings, accountants in Russia display clear signs of preference for secrecy as opposed to transparency, as identified by Gray. Originality/value -One of the contributions of this study is to examine current perceptions of Russian accountants towards financial reporting under new harmonised Russian Accounting Standards based on Rozhnova's study.

Budaya Persaudaraan Khas Madura Dalam Pengelolaan Bisnis Besi Tua

“…Sebenarnya apa pun jenis usaha mereka, dan bagaimanapun ukuran usaha mereka, akuntansi selalu melekat di dalamnya meskipun sebatas diterapkan secara sederhana. Sejumlah peneliti menyatakan bahwa terdapat nilai-nilai lain terutama budaya yang sangat erat dengan praktik akuntansi yang dijalankan oleh sebuah perusahaan yang sukses yang terkadang nilai itu tidak ter-cover dalam sebuah teori akuntansi (Combs, Samy, & Myachina, 2013;Haryadi, 2012;Khlif, 2016;Russell, Milne, & Dey, 2017;Mulawarman & Kamayanti, 2018).…”

Conceptual Framework on Antecedents of True and Fair View Reporting Surrounding Migration to Accrual-Based Accounting by Public Sector Entities: A Case of Federal Statutory Bodies (FSB) in Malaysia

“…As outlined in his concept, cultural factors impact the accounting system in two ways: by influencing value systems, and by affecting institutional aspects and their repercussions. Samy Combs and Myachina (2013) stated that, at the level of the accounting subculture, societal values are reflected, which are defined by ecological effects shaped by external forces. As a result, value systems conveyed through accountants' attitudes may be linked to and derived from society's values, with a focus on work-related values.…”

Cost-benefit analysis of IFRS adoption: developed and emerging countries

“…However, limited literature is available in Brazil, India and Russia. In the case of Russia, JFRA 14,2 there is literature available on accounting culture (Combs et al, 2013), corporate governance (Alon, 2013), information quality (Bagaeva, 2008) and value relevance of information (Kim, 2013). The studies provide evidence that there will be a positive influence on firms that are undergoing mandatory IFRS adoption (Liu et al, 2011;Kim, 2013;Zhang et al, 2013) provided there are strong corporate governance codes (Chen and Rezaee, 2012;Wang and Campbell, 2012) and the implementation of enforcement mechanism (Chen and Cheng, 2007) in countries/firms complying with the adoption of IFRS.…”