Catalin Nicolae Albu

Accounting competencies and the changing role of accountants in emerging economies: The Case of Romania

Over a recent short period, a number of interventions potentially helped move the Romanian accounting system away from being a tool simply used to support a planned economy. They include harmonization with the European Directives, the introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and an increased move towards modern information technologies such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. In this study, we directly explore these influences by applying job-offer analysis as a reflection of the current and future demand for accounting competencies. We first document current competencies expected from accountants in Romanian businesses and then assess the intervention impact on financial and management accountants. We hypothesize external influences would move Romanian accountants away from the traditional separate specialized positions towards more hybrid accounting positions, such as that adopted in the UK. Whilst our analysis supports a degree of transition with alignment to recent global trends, it also reveals some intransigence in the sense that management and financial accounting positions still tend to retain attributes associated with the two-cycle accounting system. Our findings have implications for harmonization issues and accounting education in Romania.

Accounting academia in emerging economies: evolutions and challenges

Purpose - – This paper aims to investigate the development of accounting academia in an emerging country situated in Central and Eastern Europe. Design/methodology/approach - – First, the authors analyze publications in the main three local Romanian journals dedicated to accounting, using content analysis and statistical tests in line with the issues analyzed for accounting publications in the international literature. Second, they mobilize personal experience of, and observations of local developments by, the authors. Findings - – The authors find that the decision of establishing a national journal ranking system in Romania in 2005 had both positive and negative consequences. Romanian accounting academics were asked after 2005 to focus on a very short notice on writing research papers, following a long period of communism and about 15 years of post-communism during which they wrote textbooks and professional papers. Journal and university rankings therefore influenced the publication behavior of such researchers, leading to searches for efficiency, ease of publications, publications outside accounting as well as to a difficult publication of their research outcome by internationally relevant accounting journals. Research limitations/implications - – Publications in the three Romanian accounting journals for one year were analyzed and the personal experience of the authors mobilized. However, following this study, university administrators and national regulators can better ascertain the effect of their actions, and use these findings to better plan their future actions. Originality/value - – This paper contributes to accounting research literature by offering insights into the current state of accounting research and publication in an emerging economy (Romania), and by investigating the institutional factors that may be responsible for this state of affairs.

Transparency and Quality of Financial Disclosures : the Case of Romanian Listed Companies

This paper addresses the transparency and the quality of financial disclosures of listed companies in an emerging economy (i.e. Romania), in order to shed some light on the particular local context of the country and on its impact on accounting practices. While emerging economies have attracted a lot of attention from an economic perspective recently, less is known about the accountability processes of the entities in such countries. Emerging economies are characterized as countries having informal institutions, lower enforceability, and lower quality of auditing (Peters et al., 2011). The low regulatory and enforcement pressures would impede the transparency and quality of financial disclosures of entities in such countries; research is therefore needed to understand local practices. On the other hand, there are pressures on emerging-market companies to communicate more transparent and relevant information (Kang, Gray, 2011). For example, norms and regulations have been issued to increase the transparency of companies in order to facilitate the movement of capital within the EU financial market (including the new members which are emerging economies) (Bonsón, Escobar, 2006). Therefore, improvements have been made over the last few years, at least at the regulatory level. There is a growing body of research on emerging economies, but emerging economies do not form a homogeneous group (Chamisa, 2000; Chand, 2005) and findings cannot be generalized. We report in this paper on the case of Romania, a member of the European Union (EU) since 1 January 2007, but which underwent several decades of communism during the second half of the 20th century. In