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1、Towards a Theory of Cultural Influence on the Development of Accounting Systems InternationallyS. J. GRAYAbstract：Research has shown that accounting follows different patterns in differentparts of the world. There have been claims that national systems are determined by environmental factors. In thi
2、s context, cultural factors have not been fully considered. This paper proposes four hypotheses on the relationship between identified cultural characteristics and the development of accounting systems, the regulation of the accounting profession and attitudes towards financial management and disclo
3、sure. The hypotheses are not operationalized, and empirical tests have not been carried out. They are proposed here as a first step in the development of a theory of cultural influence on the development of accounting systems.Key words: Accounting policies; Culture; Financial reporting.IntroductionT
4、his paper explores the extent to which international differences in accounting, with specific reference to corporate financial reporting systems, may be explained andpredicted by differences in cultural factors.While prior research has shown that there are different patterns of accountinginternation
5、ally and that the development of national systems tends to be a functionof environmental factors, it is a matter of some controversy as to the identificationof the patterns and influential factors involved. In this context the significance of culture does not appear to have been fully appreciated an
6、d thus the purpose of this paper is to propose a framework which links culture with the development of accounting systems internationally. The first section of the paper reviews prior research on international classificationand the influence of environmental factors. The second section addresses the
7、 significance of the cultural dimension and its application to accounting. The thirdsection proposes a framework and develops hypotheses linking culture with thedevelopment of accounting attitudes and systems internationally, based on the cross-cultural work of Hofstede. In the fourth section some c
8、ulture area classifications are proposed. They have been developed on a judgmental basis, in the context of combinations of accounting attitudes or values which determine (a) the authority for and enforcement of accounting systems, and (b) the measurement and disclosure characteristics of accounting
9、 systems.INTERNATIONAL CLASSIFICATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORSComparative accounting research has provided an enhanced awareness of the influence of environmental factors on accounting development. This research has contributed to a growing realization that fundamentally different accounting patter
10、ns exist as a result of environmental differences and that international classification differences may have significant implications for international harmonization and the promotion of economic integration. In this regard it has also been suggested that the identification of patterns may be useful
11、 in permitting a better understanding of the potential for change, given any change in environmental factors; and that policy-makers may be in a better position to predict problems that a country may be likely to face and identify solutions that may be feasible, given the experience of countries wit
12、h similar development patterns .Research efforts in this area have tended to approach the international classificationof accounting systems from two major directions. First, there is the deductive approachwhereby relevant environmental factors are identified and, by linking these to nationalaccounti
13、ng practices, international classifications or development patterns are proposed. Second, there is the inductive approach whereby accounting practices are analysed, development patterns identified, and explanations proposed with reference to a variety of economic, social, political, and cultural fac
14、tors. As regards the deductive approach to accounting classification, the environmentalanalysis by Mueller provides a useful starting point. Mueller identified four distinct approaches to accounting development in western nations with market orientated economic systems. These were:1. the macroeconom
15、ic patternwhere business accounting interrelates closely withnational economic policies;2. the microeconomic pattern - where accounting is viewed as a branch of businesseconomics;3. the independent discipline approach where accounting is viewed as a servicefunction and derived from business practice
16、; 4. the uniform accounting approach where accounting is viewed as an efficientmeans of administration and control.While all of these approaches were perceived to be closely linked to economic orbusiness factors, a wider set of influences, for example, legal system, political system,social climate w
17、ere recognized as being relevant, though without precise specification,to accounting development. Cultural factors received no explicit recognition, however, and were presumably subsumed in the set of environmental factors identified. Muellers analysis was adapted and extended by Nobes who based his
18、 classification on an evolutionary approach to the identification of measurement practices in developed Western nations. Nobes adopted a hierarchical scheme of classification in an endeavour to provide more subtlety and discrimination to the assessment of country differences. However, similarly to M
19、ueller, no explicit mention was made of cultural factors. A basic distinction between microeconomic and macroeconomic systems was made together with a disaggregation between business economics and business practice orientations under a micro-based classification. This classification system was then
20、tested by means of a judgmental analysis of national financial reporting systems in fourteen countries.By way of contrast, the inductive approach to identifying accounting patterns begins with an analysis of accounting practices. Perhaps the most important contribution of this type was by Nair and F
21、rank , who carried out a statistical analysis of accounting practices in forty-four countries. An empirical distinction was made between measurement and disclosure practices as these were seen to have different patterns of development.The empirical results, using factor analysis applied to individua
22、l practices, showedthat in respect of the Price Waterhouse data it was possible to identify five groupings of countries, with Chile as a single-country group, in terms of measurement practices. The number of groupings increased to seven when disclosure practices were considered. The disclosure group
23、ings, on the other hand, could not be described plausibly on a similar spheres-of-influence classification on account of their apparent diversity. Subsequent to the identification of groupings, Nair and Frank attempted to assessthe relationships of these groupings with a number of explanatory variab
24、les. Whilerelationships were established in respect of some of the variables which included language (as a proxy for culture), various aspects of economic structure and tradingties, it was clear that there were differences as between the measurement and disclosuregroupings. However, the hypotheses t
25、hat (a) cultural and economic variables mightbe more closely associated with disclosure practices, and (b) trading variables mightbe more closely associated with measurement practices were not supported. It is curious to note here that the language variable, as a proxy for culture, was perceived to
26、bea means of capturing similarities in legal systems which were thought to be particularlyimportant in the determination of disclosure patterns. This is questionable in itself,but in any event no justification was given for the use of language as a proxy for culture. From this brief review of some o
27、f the major studies in international classificationit seems clear that to date only very broad country groupings or accounting patternshave been identified. At the same time, only very general relationships betweenenvironmental factors and accounting patterns have been established.The significance o
28、f culture in the context of prior classification research is far from clear. It may be that cultural influences have been generally subsumed in thepredominant concern with economic factors but this has not been made explicit.Accordingly, the influence of culture on accounting would seem to have been
29、 largelyneglected in the development of ideas about international classifications.THE CULTURAL DIMENSIONThe significance of culture in influencing and explaining behaviour in social systemshas been recognized and explored in a wide range of literatures but especially the anthropology, sociology and
30、psychology literatures.Culture has been defined as the collective programming of the mind whichdistinguishes the members of one human group from another .The word culture is reserved for societies as a whole, or nations, whereas subculture is used for the ievel of an organization, profession or fami
31、ly. While the degree of cultural integration varies between societies, most subcultures within a society share common characteristics with other subcultures. An essential feature of social systems is perceived to be the inclusion of a systemof societal norms, consisting of the value systems shared b
32、y major groups within anation. Values have been defined as a broad tendency to prefer certain states of affairsover others. Values at the collective level, as opposed to the individual level, represent culture; thus culture describes a system of societal or collectively held values.In the accounting
33、 literature, however, the importance of culture and its historicalroots is only just beginning to be recognized. While there has been a lack of attentionto this dimension in the international classification literature, Harrison and McKinnon have recently proposed a methodological framework incorpora
34、ting culture for analysing changes in corporate financial reporting regulation at the nation specific level. The use of this framework to assess the impact of culture on the form and functioning of accounting is demonstrated with reference to the system in Japan. Culture is considered an essential e
35、lement in the framework for understanding how social systems change because culture influences: (1) the norms and values of such systems; (2) the behaviour of groups in their interactions within and across systems.Complementing Harrison and McKinnons approach is the suggestion here that a methodolog
36、ical framework incorporating culture may be used to explain and predictinternational differences in accounting systems and patterns of accounting developmentinternationally. More specifically, it is proposed here to explore the extent to whichcultural differences identified by Hofstedes cross-cultur
37、al research may explain international differences in accounting systems.CULTURE, SOCIETAL VALUES ANDTHE ACCOUNTING SUBCULTUREHofstedes research was aimed at detecting the structural elements of cultureand particularly those which most strongly affect known behaviour in work situationsin organization
38、s and institutions. In what is probably one of the most extensive cross-cultural surveys ever conducted, psychologists collected data about values from the employees of a multinational corporation located in more than fifty countries.Subsequent statistical analysis and reasoning revealed four underl
39、ying societal valuedimensions along which countries could be positioned. These dimensions, withsubstantial support from prior work in the field, were labelled Individualism, PowerDistance, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Masculinity. Such dimensions, which areexamined further below, were perceived to rep
40、resent elements of a common structurein cultural systems. Figure 1 shows the culture areas identified and within each group any identifiable sub-groups.FIGURE CULTURE AREAS (HOFSTEDE) More developed Less developedMore developedLatin Latin AsianBelgium Colombia JapanFrance MexicoArgentina VenezuelaBr
41、azil Spain Costa Rica ChileItaiy GuatemalaPanama AfricanPeruEast AfricaPortugalWest AfricaSalvadorUruguay Less Developed Near EasternAsian Indonesia Arab countries Pakistan Greece Taiwan Iran Thailand TurkeyAsian-Colonial YugoslaviaHong KongIndiaSingaporeMalaysiaPhilippinesGermanic AngloNordicAustri
42、a AustraliaDenmarkIsrael CanadaFinland IrelandNetherlandsGermany New ZealandNorwaySwitzerland U.K.SwedenU.S.A. South AfricaThe point of reviewing Hofstedes research here is that if societal value orientations are related to the development of accounting systems at the subcultural level, given that s
43、uch values permeate a nations social system, then it may be hypothesized that there should be a close match between culture areas and patterns of accounting systems internationally.FIGURE 2CULTURE, SOCIETAL VALUES AND THE ACCOUNTING SUB-CULTUREExternal influencesForces of natureTradeInvestmentConque
44、stSocietal valuesInstitutional consequencesLegal systemCorporate ownershipCapital marketsProfessional associationsEducationReligionAccounting valuesAccounting systemsEcological influencesGeographicEconomicDemographicGenetic/HygienicHistoricalTechnologicalUrbanisationReinforcementIn order to explore
45、further the relationship between culture and accounting systemsin an international context it is necessary to identify the mechanism by which valuesat the societal level are linked to values at the accounting sub-cultural level as it isthese latter values which are likely to influence directly the d
46、evelopment of accountingsystems in practice. This is an adaptation and extension of the model relating to the formation and stabilizing of societal culture patterns proposed by Hofstede. In this model, societal values are determined by ecological influences modified by external factors such as international trade and investment, conquest, and the forces of nature. In turn, societal values have institutional consequences in
