Chris Patel

The issue of Australian indigenous world-views and accounting

Traditionally, mainstream cross‐cultural accounting research has applied a societal norms and values measure to the examination of differences in culture. This approach is limited, however, because it effectively disfranchises the culture of minority groups such as indigenous peoples within nations. Our paper provides evidence of cultural differences between indigenous Australian values and the Western capitalist values implicit in the language of accounting and accountability. Utilising an alternative yin/yang framework developed for accounting by Hines, we argue that the core indigenous yin values of sharing, relatedness and kinship obligations inherent in indigenous conceptions of work and land, are incompatible with the yang values of quantification, objectivity, efficiency, productivity, reason and logic imposed by accounting and accountability systems. This conflict of values then brings into question the impact of accounting and accountability systems on the indigenous peoples of Australia whose beliefs, norms and values are organised differently. The need to address such a conflict is critical for all of the world’s indigenous peoples. Perhaps even more so for the Australian indigenous peoples because of the insistence by governments, at both the state and federal levels, that the extreme social and economic disadvantages experienced by the Australian indigenous peoples can be dissipated by the imposition of strict financial accountability measures for all indigenous organisations and representative bodies. We argue that the demonstrated conflict of values is a significant reason for the inability of accounting and accountability systems to deliver such social and economic outcomes. The research findings of non‐indigenous researchers are largely drawn on in this paper. The two authors of this paper are not indigenous people and therefore we are speaking “of” indigenous culture and not “speaking for” them.

The Effect of Accounting Education and National Culture on Accounting Judgments: A Comparative Study of Anglo-Celtic and Chinese Culture

Countries adopting International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) need to educate and train their professional accountants so that they are able to interpret and apply IFRS in a consistent manner. This study examines the effect of national culture and education on the judgments of Australian (Anglo-Celtic) and Chinese final year undergraduate accounting students in Australia. It seeks to understand whether culture influences student interpretation and application of uncertainty expressions, which are used as recognition and disclosure thresholds in IFRS. Results obtained on the cultural dimensions of Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism, Power Distance, Masculinity and Long-Term Orientation provide evidence that Chinese students exhibit greater conservatism and secrecy compared to Australian students. The results of the study indicate that national culture has a significant effect on the judgments of accounting students when interpreting and applying selected IFRS containing uncertainty expressions. The results also imply that educational similarity does not moderate the effect of culture in influencing the judgments of accounting students. An important implication of the study is that regulators and standard-setters involved in the international convergence of accounting standards need to pay greater attention to cultural factors that may result in a difference in the interpretation and application of IFRS.

Convergence And Harmonization Of Accounting Standards In The South Pacific Region

Over the last few years there has been a significant increase in the acceptance of International Accounting Standards (IASs) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) which are issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). Many countries are adopting the IASs/IFRSs using various approaches. These various approaches to converge and harmonize include adoption of IASs/IFRSs in its entirety, full adoption of IASs/IFRSs with time lags, selective adoption of IASs/IFRSs and countries developing national standards based on IASs/IFRSs. Given this divergence in adoption of IASs/IFRSs, national standard setters in many countries that are adopting IASs/IFRSs are struggling to impose standards that reflect the perspectives and needs of their respective users. This study seeks to examine issues that affect the adoption and implementation of IASs/IFRSs. Using countries from the South Pacific region, namely Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, this study provides examples of how these countries have adopted IASs/IFRSs. Importantly, this study identifies various factors that should be considered and proposes actions to be taken by relevant stakeholders in countries adopting IASs/IFRSs. In conclusion, we reiterate the misconception that it is not a case of ‘flicking a switch’ to comply with IASs/IFRSs. We suggest that country specific contextual factors should be considered in adopting IASs/IFRSs.

A multidimensional measure in accounting ethics research

This study contributes to accounting ethics research by providing empirical evidence and some suggestions for the selection of variables to measure ethical judgements and ethical intentions of professional accountants. The senior professional accountants from big accounting firms located in Australia, India and Malaysia were investigated to gather evidence on measures of ethical judgements and intentions on 11 dependent variables. The study specifically suggests that a combination of unidimensional and multidimensional be used to gain an insight into the complex ethical judgements and intentions of accountants. More importantly, this study finds support for the hypothesis that the explanatory powers of the multidimensional ethics measure are greater than the unidimensional variables. This study also extends prior research by finding support for the hypothesis that social desirability response bias exists among accountants from the three countries. Furthermore, the study contributes to comparative international accounting research by showing that these suggested variables also provide useful insights into ethical judgements and intentions of accountants in countries that differ significantly in their cultural characteristics.

The Case for Economic and Accounting Dualism: Towards Reconciling the Japanese Accounting System with the Global Trend of Fair Value Accounting

Over the last thirty years in particular, a number of papers have examined various issues concerning the Japanese accounting system. However, previous research has largely ignored the importance of Japanese contextual factors. As such, the objective of this paper is to develop a holistic theoretical contextual framework for examining the Japanized process of convergence, which aims at integrating the Japanese-specific accounting system with the Anglo-American model, thereby achieving de facto (actual) convergence. This framework includes three heterogeneous genealogies, namely, Accounting Monism, Economic Monism, and Economic and Accounting Dualism, and four contextual dimensions, including legal, historical, political, and economic environments. The results show that because Japan has both globalized large-scale capital markets and well-organized related infrastructures, which include financial systems, governance structures, related laws, auditing standards, and standards-setting bodies, it would be futile to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) without reforming these and related facilities and resources. The findings also show that Economic and Accounting Dualism aims at reconciling heterogeneous concepts in accounting practices, such as future and past measurement attributes, asset-liability and revenue-expense based income, ex ante and ex post income calculation, and information providing role and reconciliation role of financial reporting. Excessive emphasis on Economic Monism and fair value disregards the fact that Japan is undergoing a prolonged, complex, and controversial process for aligning its entire accounting system with IFRS. Importantly, the partial suspension of fair value measurement and the swing-back towards historical cost measurement caused by the recent global financial crisis revealed that fair value is not unconditionally fair. We suggest that social, historical, political, and economic factors cannot be ignored in this rush towards global convergence of financial reporting. We further argue that accounting research can be enhanced by examining the contextual factors in which the uniqueness of accounting system is embedded.

Chapter 3 Research methodology

The aim of this chapter is to outline the research methodology for the study. Section 3.2 will discuss how a positive stakeholder theory can be formulated against the contrasting philosophies of moral universals and moral relativism. The aim of this section is to explain how stakeholder claims such as employee health and safety and environmental protection represent moral universals (fundamental ethical norms) and how differences in their perceived importance have less to do with claims of moral relativism and more to do with economic and social advancement, which can thwart the fulfilment of stakeholder objectives. The conflicting philosophies can hinder a normative approach to stakeholder theory in an international context and highlight the importance of a positive theory of the firm that can explain and predict stakeholder development in different contexts.

Chapter 7 Implications and Directions for Future Research

We have considered both the de jure and de facto aspects of comparability in financial reporting. Generally, the findings presented in this monograph show that there is a lack of both de jure and de facto comparability in financial reporting across countries. We have considered the de jure aspect of comparability in financial reporting by identifying the ways in which IFRS are adopted and enforced in the South Pacific region and also investigated the relationship between country-specific characteristics and the selection of the appropriate approach for adoption. An examination of the convergence process in the South Pacific region provides evidence that countries use different approaches in their adoption of IFRS. We have broadly identified five different approaches for convergence and harmonization of accounting standards, ranging from adoption of IFRS in their entirety to the lack of reference to IFRS, that is, no convergence or harmonization.

The Application of the Marketing Concept in Textbook Selection: Using the Cloze Procedure

Because of increased class sizes, higher staff teaching loads, and inadequate teaching facilities, many marketing faculty have less time to evaluate textbooks effectively. This situation results in text selection processes based on criteria that favor ease of teaching rather than student learning. Since marketing education places great reliance on textbooks as the primary instructional medium, marketing academics must select textbooks using explicit, educationally sound, student-oriented criteria. A method reflecting the most fundamental law of marketing, one that ensures that the chosen texts are easy for students to read and understand, should rate as an important selection process criterion. The cloze procedure has proven to be a highly reliable and valid measure of “understandability.” This study suggests that it is an objective and responsive marketing-oriented technique for selecting marketing textbooks. To demonstrate its use, the technique is used to rank three international editions of principles of marketing textbooks by obtaining scores of understandability from first-year students at one Australian university. These objective scores of understandability, when complemented by other qualitative and quantitative criteria for evaluating textbooks, are very useful for selecting marketing textbooks.

Is international accounting education delivering pedagogical value

ABSTRACT This paper examines whether universities are delivering pedagogical value to international accounting students commensurate with the costs of studying abroad. The paper uses survey and interview methods to explore the extent to which Chinese Learners (CLs) in an Australian postgraduate accounting subject have distinct learning needs. The paper then reviews universities’ responses to these needs, especially in light of funding and resource pressures. The paper reinforces findings that CLs have different learning approaches to local students, but not inferior or ‘shallow’ approaches. However, since CLs face distinctive financial and social pressures to achieve high results, their learning practices may be more sensitive to changes in teaching and assessment, such that cost constraints on educational resources might disproportionately affect their learning. This suggests that a paradoxical result of the funding pressures on many universities may be to encourage large international student cohorts while constraining available resources to meet their learning needs.

Chapter 4 Development and stakeholder prominence

What has emerged from the first three chapters has been the increasingly global environment within which organisations operate. This is particularly so in the Asia-Pacific region, which due to its continued urbanisation, is undergoing profound economic and social change. Despite stakeholder theory offering a new perspective on the traditional principal–agent relationship that had existed implicitly between both the manager and “shareholder” and the manager and “debtholder”, little has been done theoretically to explain and predict differences in “stakeholder” prominence across countries that embody different economic and social levels of development. As mentioned in Chapter 3, a Positive Stakeholder Theory approach, which seeks to understand stakeholder prominence through an AHP, is a means by which to enrich stakeholder theory beyond the confines of the prescriptive.