Ann B Murphy,

The Impact of Adopting International Accounting Standards on the Harmonization of

Accounting Practices,
The International Journal of Accounting,
Volume 35, Issue 4,
2000,
Pages 471-493,
ISSN 0020-7063,
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0020-7063(00)00074-1.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0020706300000741)
Abstract: Over the past few decades numerous organizations have been actively
participating in the efforts to improve the comparability of financial reporting.
Many studies have discussed the benefits and drawbacks of comparability. This study
investigated the affect on the harmonization, or comparability, of accounting
practices when a sample of companies choose to use international accounting
standards (IASs) when preparing financial reports. This study analyzed trends in
the I index, a measure of concentration for the use of a particular accounting
practice introduced by van der Tas, to determine if the choice of accounting
methods by a sample of Swiss companies became more aligned with a sample of
companies from three other countries. The study included a control sample of Swiss
companies that did not switch from reporting using local Swiss standards during the
same time period, 1988 through 1995. Four accounting practices were included;
depreciation, inventory, financial statement cost basis, and consolidation
practices. The practices used were compared with a sample of companies from three
countries; Japan, the UK, and the US. The results indicated that across the 8-year
period, the majority of the I indices comparisons were positive and statistically
significant. However, the results did not support that these increases were due
primarily to the adoption of IASs.
Keywords: International accounting standards; Comparability; Harmonization