Culture and the qualitative characteristics of financial information: an empirical study of firms traded on different European stockmarkets

Abstract

This research investigates the possible existence of an association between the cultural values proposed by Gray (1988) and the qualitative characteristics of financial reporting found in the  Review of the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting jointly developed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). Data was collected from the annual reports and consolidated accounts for 2013 and 2014 disclosed by non-financial firms listed in the following stock indexes for  financial markets of the European Union: PSI-20, IBEX-35, FTSE-100, DAX-30 and OMX-S30. After screening for determined selection criteria, the final population of this study was made up of 137 entities. Content analysis was carried out and, after applying the Mann-Whitney-U test, findings suggest that conservatism is negatively associated with the relevance of financial information. The assessment of the impact of culture on the process of international convergence, as well as the elements associated with this question, are among  the scientific contributions of this study.