Development of a Belgian accounting code during the first half of the 20th century

Continental European countries are familiar with standardized charts of accounts. Practices in these countries have been quite diverging however, ranging from the voluntary adoption of schemes developed by professionals or associations to state-imposed charts. In the development of these schemes, several Belgian accounting scholars have played an important role, particularly from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. This paper links the charts proposed in Belgium with attempts to develop unified accounting and costing methods and efforts to introduce principles of scientific management around the end of the Second World War. It also seeks to explain why the introduction of decimalized charts took longer in Belgium than other countries such as France

Accruals in High Tech Industries

Les sociétés de haute technologie européennes, de par leurs caractéristiques (dépenses en actifs immatériels, croissance, innovation...) sont amenées à publier des régularisations comptables. Ceci peut affecter la persistance de leurs résultats. Néanmoins, notre étude indique qu'au global, les résultats des entreprises de haute technologie ne sont pas moins persistants.haute technologie, persistance du résultat, régularisations comptables

Corporate governance and intellectual capital disclosure : evidence from the Scandinavian countries

In the modern society intellectual capital (IC) disclosure offers valuable insights on the information transparency between the organisation and its stakeholders. The purpose of the present study is to analyse the determinants of IC disclosure based on the firm data collected from the Scandinavian countries. We have chosen to analyse 123 annual reports in the local language for the period of 2008 to 2012. The annual reports act as one of the best sources of data revealing important information about firms that are beyond the reporting requirements of the accounting regulations. This paper combines the empirical research of IC disclosure with the previous literature to identify its strategic implications on corporate governance. The aim is to examine the relationship between firm size, leverage ratio, information asymmetry and industry-specific factors on the level of IC disclosure. Our results call the potential need for more IC disclosure

Internationalizing the French auditing profession

The objective of this paper is to trace the development of the French auditing profession, the commissaires aux comptes, focusing on the appearance of the large Anglo-American audit firms on the French market. The French audit market has always shown a number of peculiarities, including the continued importance of a number of local audit firms. The French auditing profession finds its roots in late 19th century company law that introduced an obligation for companies to release audited financial statements. The profession became regulated in its modern form in the 1960s. This paper attempts to explain the growing impact of the international audit firms on the French auditing profession. It also demonstrates how local professionals and the French state reacted to these developments

Accounting conservatism, financial reporting and stock returns

Research Question: One of the aims of this paper is to examine accounting conservatism using a robust set of data collected from the recent years to better understand how accounting conservatism affects the relations between stock returns and accounting variables. Motivation: Financial reporting is increasingly dependent on an in-depth understanding of the imperfections in the capital markets as well as the impact of the accounting standards on firm performance. Idea: The effect of accounting regulations on the firms’ reporting practices can be evaluated via a firm’s change in cash investments and its operating assets. Data: This study employs a robust set of data with different market to book ratios and corporate governance characteristics collected from Compustat North America Fundamentals Annual firm year observations for the time period of January 1998 to December 2015 fiscal years to better understand how accounting conservatism affects the relations between stock returns and accounting variables. Tools: Compared to the previous studies, any potential improvement in the research method is provided using a regression weight averaged over the years. Findings: There is an improvement in the explanatory power of the estimates of the coefficients on earnings levels and earnings changes when the variables associated with accounting conservatism are incorporated in the analysis. Contribution: Given the ample amount of research done in the international aspects of financial reporting, analyses of differences in results compared to the previous studies and future research opportunities will be provided