Identifying the Classification of EU Countries by an Alternative Variable: The “Stakeholders’ Perception”

Abstract

Since the first part of 20th century, there was a strand of literature that analyzes international differences in financial accounting practices and uses these differences to classify countries into groups having similar characteristics. For a long time, the two main accounting systems that have been analyzed in these studies were the Anglo-Saxon accounting system and the Continental Europe one. Notwithstanding the last decades have been characterized by a widespread harmonization process through an extensive and often compulsory adoption of IAS/IFRSs, the situation did not changed so much, because there are still a lot of relevant differences in applying IAS/IFRSs. The aim of this research is to contribute to the literature in theme of countries classification using a different type of variable: the -stakeholders' perception‖ instead of -accounting practices‖. Using a quantitative statistic methodology, the ISSN 2162-3082 2016 cluster analysis, we identify a three-group classification of the EU countries based on the answers about the costs and benefits of IFRS implementation issued in EU public Consultation, launched ten years after their mandatory application. International Journal of Accounting and Financial Reporting