INFLUENCE OF CULTURAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCES ON IFRS ADOPTION

Abstract

The accounting goes through a convergence’s process to the international financial accounting standards, due to the expansion of multinational relation and capital market. Furthermore, it is know that characteristics cultural, economic and social influence the decision of a nation, then it is expect that the reaction of each country against the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) will be different, depending on their characteristics. Thus, this research purpose investigates the influence of culture, society and economy of the countries in the decision of adoption or not the IFRS. To do so, using metrics such as a dimensions of Hofstede and data of population size, GDP per capita e HDI, it was found that the decision has statistically significant relationship with population size and two cultural dimensions, the individualism and the uncertainty avoidance. The negative relationship with population size was expected, because the counties with more population have not adopted the standard, which suggests satisfied with their accounting or high cost of implementation the new rule. The positive relationship with uncertainty avoidance was also expected, because the harmonization of accounting minimizes opportunistic attitude of managers, increasing the credibility of the information. However, the relationship with individualism was not expected, what can be inferring that this dimension has lack credibility or that this variable does not show adequately the cultural gap existing.