Measuring International Harmonization and Standardization: A Reply

Abstract

Van der Tas' comment (1992) on our article (Tay and Parker, 1990) is greatly appreciated for two reasons: first, as he points out, and as evidenced by our article, there is little research in the field of measuring international harmonization and standardization; second, because his original paper (van der Tas, 1988) was instrumental in beginning our evaluation of different measurement approaches.We consider our article a preliminary examination of the issues involved in the measurement of harmonization and standardization. It did not include an example of the measurement approach we proposed, as we did not have what we had suggested were the necessary data, nor had we concluded which (if any) of the available concentration measures and tests of statistical significance to apply. These issues have been addressed in a more comprehensive work (Tay, 1989), and will be dealt with below. STUDIES EXAMINED Measuring HarmonizationOnly two of the six studies we reviewed contained the word 'harmonization' in their title, and explicitly cited harmonization measurement as a formal objective. In the four other studies, however, compliance with IASC standards was more or less explicitly linked with harmonization, indicating, to our minds, that the authors of those studies had assumed that greater compliance with IASC standards would be equivalent to greater harmony of financial reporting. Compliance with IASC Standards and HarmonizationWe recognize, as does van der Tas, the difference between the two phenomena of compliance with IASC standards and accounting harmonization, hence the distinction we drew between de jure and de facto harmonization. The point which

Formal accounting harmonization - A new measurement scheme demonstrated by Vietnam’s data and International Financial Reporting Standards

“…Later discussions and studies made this definition clearer by distinguishing standardization from harmonization (Tay & Parker, 1992). The former results in the omission of options, while the latter is relating to clustering (e.g.…”

“…With the significant influence of IFRS, there is an obvious trend that nations seem not only to adapt to but also comply with IFRS. Tay & Parker, (1992), correlated this difference by distinguishing formal and material harmonization. They presumed that compliance with IFRS is formal harmonization.…”

“…They are different in nature and have different influences on financial reporting. Therefore, we need to use different methods to evaluate them (Tay & Parker, 1992).…”

Measurement of Accounting Harmonization and Standardization

“…der Tas (1992:214-215) strongly condemned the attempts by Tay and Parker (1992. ) stating that the H index is calculated as the square of the relative frequencies of alternative measurement method for a particular type of transaction.…”

Measurement of Formal Harmonisation in Accounting: An Exploratory Study

“…The objective of this type of research is to examine the justification for accounting harmonisation (e.g., Alford et al, 1993;Amir, Trevor and Venuti, 1993;Barth and Clinch, I Van der Tas (1992a) has argued that not all of the six studies Tay and Parker (1990) reviewed were studies specifically dealing with harmonisation. Tay and Parker (1992) have contended that all six studies were 'more or less' (p. 217) linked with harmonisation. 1994).…”