Give a brief overview on this article , no word count, must be original and pass turnitin.
Article Link: http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/2009/feb/ifrsbeyondthestandards
Summary of the Article
The article summarizes that, although many countries have adopted the same version of IFRS, there are two factors that could weaken the application of adopting IFRS: the national culture and the difficulty of translating these principles-based guidelines into specific languages. These could also weaken the comparability of financial information across countries. The article summarizes the results of a large survey of approximately 116,000 employees from a multinational company that is located in 50 countries and three regions around the world. According to this research, higher levels of conservatism in a country most closely result in higher uncertainty avoidance and lower individualism and achievement orientation. Also, high secrecy in a nation implies that there might be a tendency to restrict disclosure of relevant financial information to external stakeholders. In summary, this research proves that the unique cultural values prevalent in a country could influence the country’s accounting values. Such difference in judgments could lead to significant variations in financial statements and will severely impact the comparability and consistency of financial statements across countries. The difficulty of translating these principles-based guidelines into specific languages is the next major hurdle in adopting IFRS. While translating IRFS into Spanish is considered easier,translating IFRS into French and German is very problematic that could lead to different interpretation of the guidelines mentioned. As per the article, the official language of the IASB, and the published language of IFRS is English.This poses a serious threat of comparability and consistency of financial information for non-English speaking countries to adopt IFRS when it is translated into other languages.
