State Versus Market: Contending Interests in the Struggle to Control French Accounting Standardisation

Colasse, Bernard; Standish, Peter

doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-4589-7_1

Cited by 11 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…He adds (p. 49) that "many directors admit that it is impossible to escape the demands made by the US and British investors", which confirms our hypothesis of a link between management and professional shareholders. This evolution in French capitalism from a stakeholder towards a shareholder model is also observable in accounting regulations: Colasse and Standish (1998) have shown how membership of the CNC (Conseil National de la Comptabilité -National Accountancy Council), the accounting regulatory body, has rapidly evolved in the nineties in favour of representatives of large (listed) enterprises and audit companies, to the detriment of the public sector. All these factors explain why French accounting legislation on goodwill has, at least since 1985, followed American or international standards.…”

Section: Francementioning

confidence: 99%

Towards an Understanding of the Phases of Goodwill Accounting in Four Western Capitalist Countries: From Stakeholder Model to Shareholder Model

2007

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The objective of this paper is to illustrate that the change in shareholders' attitude towards firms (from stakeholder model to shareholder model) influences the accounting treatments of goodwill. Our study is based on four countries (Great Britain, the United States, Germany, and France) and covers more than a century, starting in 1880. We explain that all these countries have gone through four identified phases of goodwill accounting, classified as (1) "static" (immediate or rapid expensing), (2) "weakened static" (write-off against equity), (3) "dynamic" (recognition with amortization over a long period) and (4) "actuarial" (recognition without amortization but with impairment if necessary). We contribute several new features to the existing literature on goodwill: our study (1) is international and comparative, (2) spans more than a century, (3) uses the stakeholder/shareholder models to explain the evolution in goodwill treatment in the four countries studied. More precisely, it relates a balance sheet theory, which distinguishes four phases in accounting treatment for goodwill, to the shift from a stakeholder model to a shareholder model, which leads to the preference for short-term rather than long-term profit, (4) contributes to the debate on whether accounting rules simply reflect or arguably help to produce the general trend towards the shareholder model, (5) demonstrates a "one-way" evolution of goodwill treatment in the four countries studied, towards the actuarial phase.

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Section: Francementioning

confidence: 99%

Towards an Understanding of the Phases of Goodwill Accounting in Four Western Capitalist Countries: From Stakeholder Model to Shareholder Model

2007

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“…Levant and Nikitin (2012) draw attention to this separation and focus on the role of an influential practitioner, Jean-Pierre Lagrange, in his failed attempt to re-integrate the two systems. This latter study and the study by Colasse and Standish (1998) are then the only works reviewed that draw attention to tensions in the discussions surrounding the plan comptable and the workings of the respective accounting councils. That is, the bulk of the literature presents the plan as a monolithic artifact of French accounting regulation that, despite a number of revisions, has remained a constant and stable feature of the regulatory framework.…”

Section: Francementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Colasse and Standish (1998) analyze in detail the membership and functioning of the CNC from 1951 to the 1990s. Major revisions of the plan occurred in 1957 and 1982, and a 1962 decree made it binding for the private sector.…”

Section: Francementioning

confidence: 99%

“…But it would be useful to add to Ballwieser's (2010) and Fülbier and Klein's (2015) brief assessment of the DRSC and to consider other recently established institutions, including the FREP and the BaFin. The work by Colasse and Standish (1998) is an important contribution on the history of the French CNC, yet one would look for further assessments of how standard-setting debates have changed over time, exploring, for instance, how the regulatory dialogue has changed since the CNC gave place to the more technical ANC. A clear explication of the workings of the ANC, perhaps along the lines of Dao's (2005) study of the AMF, would be useful to assess whether the national accounting body in fact mirrors the work of international accounting standard setters and has itself become more internationalized.…”

Section: Potential For Expanding the English-language Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

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“Forging accounting principles” in France, Germany, Japan, and China: A comparative review

Camfferman

Detzen

2018

Accounting History

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This article surveys the English-language literature on the history of financial reporting regulation in four non-English-speaking countries: France, Germany, Japan, and China. The choice of these countries was based on the availability of a sizable accounting history literature in the area surveyed. We first offer a summary of regulatory events in the four countries and suggest that the literature provides ample evidence of the countries' intricate histories of financial reporting regulation. In addition, we point to important research gaps, where we believe that the literature has significant underexploited potential, in particular by moving beyond high-level overviews of changing regulatory mechanisms to in-depth studies of regulatory change that are embedded in the local legal, political, and societal contexts. Hence, plenty of opportunities exist for further research into these countries' regulatory histories, either in terms of single-country studies or as comparative histories.

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“…And other conflicts may be articulated in terms of age, ethnicity, religion and culture, for instance. Ways forward here may be thought of in terms of redressing the balance (see the various studies of Puxty, 1983;Gallhofer, 1998;Colasse and Standish, 2001;Botzem and Quack, 2005;Perry and Nöelke, 2005;De Lange and Howieson, 2006;Rodriguez and Craig, 2007;Volmer et al, 2007).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Implementation of IAS/IFRS in Poland – major research approaches and new research possibilities

Haslam

Łada

Kozarkiewicz

2014

ZTR

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State Versus Market: Contending Interests in the Struggle to Control French Accounting Standardisation

Cited by 11 publications

References 5 publications

Towards an Understanding of the Phases of Goodwill Accounting in Four Western Capitalist Countries: From Stakeholder Model to Shareholder Model

Towards an Understanding of the Phases of Goodwill Accounting in Four Western Capitalist Countries: From Stakeholder Model to Shareholder Model

“Forging accounting principles” in France, Germany, Japan, and China: A comparative review

Implementation of IAS/IFRS in Poland – major research approaches and new research possibilities

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