Rolf Uwe Fülbier

Impact of Lease Capitalization on Financial Ratios of Listed German Companies

The separation of leases into operating and finance leases for accounting purposes can result in incentives to favor operating lease contracts, since they avoid on-balance-sheet debt. the IASB and FAsB are conducting a long-term joint project on leasing, following the G4+1 group’s research on possible improvements to lease accounting. One alternative is to treat all leases in a manner similar to today’s finance leasing. Our simulation results for Germany show notable changes in a variety of financial ratios, especially for assets and liability relations, which may trigger management with incentives to dampen these effects. Of note for standard setters, the effects of operating lease capitalization should not be overstated. Only minor effects can be observed for profitability ratios and market multiples often used for valuation purposes. Moreover, most industries remain almost unaffected and the relative ratio-based ranking of all sample companies does not change much. additionally, we observe that the common Creditstats® model yields somewhat comparable results.

A Glance at German Financial Accounting Research between 1950 and 2005: A Publication and Citation Analysis

We examine German financial accounting research between 1950 and 2005 by analyzing articles from leading academic journals. Our analysis documents increases in articles in academic journals, multi-authorship, pages, and references per article. Our citation analysis reveals major German characteristics, especially the dominance of German researchers and the significant role of books, practitioner journals and legalistic/jurisdictional sources. However, we find that since the 1990s, English language publications, English references per article, and the number of frequently cited non-German authors and non-German journals have increased. Moreover, publications in English language journals by German accounting researchers indicate the adoption of a more Anglo-American research and citation style. We also examine major journals and protagonists of German financial accounting research, especially authors and institutions.

Balancing past and present: The impact of accounting internationalisation on German accounting regulations

Accounting plays a distinct role in a firm’s governance system and has evolved in a specific institutional setting over time to meet the contractual demands of various stakeholders. Against this backdrop, we argue that accounting internationalisation affects the contracting system when formal rules from other settings are introduced. To support our argument and to substantiate the interplay of accounting as a contractual device and country-specific institutions, we provide an in-depth case study of one European code-law country, Germany. Here, we place the recent phenomenon of accounting internationalisation into historical-institutional perspective and illustrate how accounting internationalisation has triggered a balancing act between a path-dependent preservation of the traditional contracting role and a moderate move towards valuation-based international benchmarks.

The Role and Current Status of IFRS in the Completion of National Accounting Rules – Evidence from Austria and Germany

Abstract Austria and Germany share similar accounting traditions. International harmonization in both countries has mainly focused on group accounting. In contrast, single financial statements give rise to legal and tax consequences and, thus, are still tied to the traditional principles of orderly accounting. Recent regulatory changes confirmed this dual role of accounting in both countries, while moving local accounting rules closer to IFRS, although to different extents. We illustrate how recent regulations in the two countries made reference to IFRS, how IFRS was considered during the law-making process and outline major differences that remain between domestic and international accounting standards.

Inside the Black Box of IASB Standard Setting: Evidence from Board Meeting Audio Playbacks on the Amendment of IAS 19 (2011)

Abstract We provide evidence on the little researched internal sphere of private IASB standard setting, more specifically, on the dynamic of board discussions and the respective impact of exogenous input such as comment letters, the array of arguments evoked in IASB debates, individual board member contribution and board-staff relations. We conduct a content analysis of audio recordings of 14 IASB meetings on the amendment of IAS 19 Employee Benefits (2011) between November 2008 and February 2010. Our main findings comprise the argument-based handling of comment letters not being conditioned by the political or economic importance of the senders, the gatekeeper role of staff members in channelling exogenous input and their equal role in board discussions and the dominant reference to conceptual arguments there. We also point to the heterogeneous involvement of board members, their different attribution to key issues and to further observations regarding the meeting governance, board’s discussion culture and etiquette. Our paper adds to the literature on private IASB standard setting, pension accounting and group decision making. Data: All data are available from the public sources identified in this paper

Die Leasingbilanzreform als Herausforderung für die Unternehmensführung

Mit IFRS 16 als neuen Standard zur Leasingbilanzierung in der internationalen Rechnungslegung geht nicht nur eine deutlich veranderte Bilanzierung von Leasingverhaltnissen einher. Die Bilanzwirksamkeit nahezu samtlicher Leasingvertrage und die damit einhergehenden Anforderungen an Ansatz, Erst- und Folgebewertung sowie Offenlegung haben fur die betroffenen Unternehmen als Leasingnehmer Implikationen, die uber die eigentlichen Anderungen in der Bilanz- und Erfolgsrechnung weit hinaus gehen. Erhebliche unternehmensinterne Auswirkungen sind zu erwarten, die nicht nur Organisationsprozesse beruhren, sondern Kernfragen der internen Steuerung und des Vertragscontrollings sowie Fragen der Compliance und der internen wie externen Prufung. Eine verantwortungsbewusste Unternehmensfuhrung sollte sich auf diese Veranderungen einstellen und proaktiv gestalten. Vor diesem Hintergrund soll der vorliegende Beitrag die Bandbreite moglicher Auswirkungen der Leasingbilanzreform und die daraus resultierenden Herausforderungen fur die Unternehmensfuhrung aufzeigen.

Content and context : "fair" values in China

Purpose - The evolution of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) was nurtured by economists and accountants loyal to the philosophical basis of what is often referred to as “Western” market economies, being classical and neoclassical contracting theories. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how a particular Asian cultural attribute ( Design/methodology/approach - Using a literature review and research of studies of the adoption of IFRS in China, studies of both Findings - javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement@14748076 Research limitations/implications - Future research on the impact of Originality/value - This study highlights how difficult it may be to achieve both comparability and relevance in the asset and liability recognition and measurement rules in Asian (and possibly also other) economies adopting accounting principles that are developed in a Western context.

Anforderungen an die Rechnungslegung und Publizität internationaler Unternehmen

Wenn Unternehmen ihre wirtschaftlichen Aktivitaten uber die Grenzen des Heimatlandes hinaus ausdehnen, werden sie mit den abweichenden gesellschaftlichen, wirtschaftlichen, geistigen und kunstlerischen Regeln des Zusammenlebens des Auslandes konfrontiert. Fur die auf internationalen Markten agierenden Unternehmen hat dies zur Konsequenz, das sie sich mit dem jeweiligen sozio-okonomischen Umfeld und der aus der Wirtschaftsordnung abgeleiteten Unternehmensverfassung des Gastlandes auseinandersetzen mussen, um dort erfolgreich operieren zu konnen (Grosfeld, 1995).