چکیده:
Harmonization of accounting financial reporting standards is defined as a way of decreasing the diversity between local accounting standards that facilitate cross-national capital flows and stimulate economic growth. Investigation into the accounting standard-setting strategies can be related practically to the study of harmonization, since the ability to dominate the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB) can create an obstacle in harmonization of accounting standards and subsequently the flow of capital worldwide. The study aims to reveal that a valid and effective accounting standard, which formerly issued, may reflect the needs and expectation of few interested powerful bodies due to the neutral comments and dearth of lobbyists in the process of setting the standard. Therefore the research investigates the working of the IASB, by exploring the standard setting process specifically in relation to the standard on business combinations which has been on the agenda over an extended period of time. The written submissions in response to 14 issues, proposed in Exposure Draft 61 (1997), to revise IAS 22 "Business Combination" are analyzed to understand whether various comments from different interested parties deliberately affect IASB’s decision. The situations in which any of the lobbyists (e.g. Anglo-American bodies) may exert influence are discussed. The results confirm an overall support to the proposed issues by the participants. So there was a satisfactory degree of consensus between the lobbyists involved in IAS 22 in favor of what the IASB was attempting to do. It may raise our concerns about the effectiveness of the deliberation method in the process of setting IASs. This provides us evidence that the IASB acted independently and made its decisions rationally. However a managed type of consensus was seen, which is consistent with the covert view of excreting power and mimetic isomorphism, as a result of insufficiency of respondents and large numbers of neutral comments on the outcome of the consultation process. It then justifies the needs for a revision of the standard once more as happened in IFRS 3.
خلاصه ماشینی:
The study aims to reveal that a valid and effective accounting standard, which formerly issued, may reflect the needs and expectation of few interested powerful bodies due to the neutral comments and dearth of lobbyists in the process of setting the standard.
The written submissions in response to 14 issues, proposed in Exposure Draft 61 (1997), to revise IAS 22 "Business Combination" are analyzed to understand whether various comments from different interested parties deliberately affect IASB’s decision.
Alternatively there are some criticisms of the politics involved in the decision making process used in the approval of IASs, in which the needs of the majority of the respondents of IASB are ignored due to the exertion of power by some outside or inside pressure groups (Cortese and Irvine, 2010) or, more likely, a "domination" of IASB by US accounting standards, the FASB (Lange and Howieson, 2006).
Development of IAS 22 and scope of the research The standard of business combination has been a subject of argument for a long period of time because national accounting bodies, as well as G4 and the IASB, have issued numerous Exposure Drafts that have resulted in repeated changes to this standard.
The potential economic consequences of different issues proposed in ED 61, mainly the fair value accounting for non-financial tangible and intangible assets, the significance of goodwill that emerges in an acquisition of assets and its amortization to profit, can be matters of major consideration.