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The purpose of this paper is to respond to calls in the literature to examine personality variables which may provide sharper insights into accountants’ judgments in applying principles-based International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). This paper contributes to the literature on the global convergence of financial reporting by examining the influence of an important personality variable, construal of self, on Chinese accountants’ aggressive financial reporting judgments.

A between-subjects quasi-experiment was applied. In total, 122 Chinese professional accountants were categorized as either independents or interdependents, on the basis of their scores on construal of self scales. Subjects made their consolidation reporting judgments in the manipulated situations based on the financial performance of the investee entity, which refers to the situation where the investee entity makes a significant profit or a significant loss in the reporting period.

Compared to interdependent accountants, independent accountants used the flexibility allowed in the principles-based standards to make more aggressive consolidation reporting judgments. Also, adoption of IFRS may not necessarily ensure consistent judgments even within China.

This paper provides empirical evidence of the importance of construal of self in examining accountants’ aggressive judgments. The authors suggest that it may be premature to assume that adoption of IFRS will lead to comparable financial reporting. The findings are relevant to researchers who are interested in examining personality and cultural influences on accountants’ judgments both within and across countries. Companies and organizations may incorporate appropriate strategies to recruit and train independent and interdependent accountants, particularly by addressing the influence of construal of self on aggressive financial reporting judgments.

Recognising the growing importance of professional judgement within professional accounting, this paper examines how it relates to Aristotelian practical wisdom, with reference to the ethical failure at Carillion plc in 2018. This includes an examination of how these concepts are similar and how they differ and a reconceptualisation of professional judgement in Aristotelian terms.

The conventional understanding of professional judgement is articulated with reference to accounting standards, professional accounting institutions and academic research. This is compared to Aristotelian practical wisdom, as presented in the Nicomachean Ethics. Both of these conceptualisations are analysed with reference to the failure of Carillion plc.

Some similarities as well as significant differences between the conventional conceptualisation of professional judgement and Aristotelian practical wisdom are identified. Application to the accounting failure of Carillion plc shows how an Aristotelian reconceptualisation of professional judgement, as an ethical concept, provides a more adequate understanding of unethical accounting behaviour.

The analysis identifies aspects of professional judgement in accounting that have not previously been explored empirically, but which nevertheless have empirical support in other domains.

Professional judgement is reconceptualised in ethical terms, which informs how professional bodies and firms should conceive and apply this concept.

Although there has been research on judgement informed by psychology, there has been little research linking judgement and wisdom in an accounting context. This paper utilises a philosophically informed perspective on wisdom to reconceptualise professional judgement in a way that provides a more adequate understanding of ethical failures.

This chapter investigates the effect of moral reasoning of tax professionals on the aggressiveness of their reporting recommendations. The findings of the study indicate moral reasoning influences the aggressiveness of tax reporting decisions separate from the influence of client pressure. As the level of moral reasoning increases, the aggressiveness of the reporting position is found to0 decrease. Contrary to prior research, client pressure is not related to tax reporting aggressiveness. Failure to observe this relationship may signal a shift in behavior resulting from the intense public and regulatory scrutiny at the time of data collection which was in the immediate aftermath of the Enron scandal.

The purpose of this paper is to increase the awareness of the implications of language translation for accounting standard setting, education and research, and to work towards a critical research agenda.

The paper is based on a selective review of recent intercultural accounting research and literature on translation in accounting, of developments in accounting standard setting and on selected insights from translation studies.

Translation is not a simple technical, but a socio-cultural, subjective and ideological process. In contrast to the translation turn in other disciplines, however, most qualitative and critical accounting research neglects translation as a methodological and epistemological consideration and as a research opportunity.

The paper proposes themes for a research agenda on translation in accounting.

The paper identifies opportunities for further and deeper investigations of translation in accounting regulation, education and research. Particular emphasis is given to the implication of translation in accounting research that is grounded in interpretivist and constructivist paradigms, where translation is inextricably linked with data analysis and interpretation and may inadvertently reproduce cultural hegemonies.

This study aims to investigate two issues inherent in accounting judgements: the directional influence of uncertainty expressions and how they might positively or negatively affect accounting judgements and the foreign-language effect (FLE), which refers to the reduction of judgement bias that occurs when an accounting judgement is made in one’s foreign language. This study examines both issues in the context of accounting judgements made in Chinese and English languages.

This study conducted two experiments. The first experiment applied a 2 × 2 between-subject research design, and the second experiment adopted a 2 × 2 within-subject approach.

The overall results revealed that directionality biases existed in the exercise of accounting judgement in subjects’ native and foreign languages. However, when the language was switched from the subjects’ native tongue to a foreign language, overall directionality biases are reduced.

This study suggests that the use of native and non-native languages can have unintended consequences on accounting judgements. However, because of the limitations of using students as proxies for professionals and applying self-assessed language scales, the literature would benefit from future research that extends the subject profile to professional accountants and that assesses language skills more objectively.

This study contributes to the literature on cross-lingual accounting, both theoretically and methodologically. It also extends the FLE theory to an accounting context, providing insights on how language is involved in judgements concerning uncertainty expressions.

This study aims to examine whether accountability and culture have an impact on auditors’ professional scepticism. It also examines whether culture moderates the effect of accountability on auditors’ professional scepticism.

Three of the Big 4 firms in Australia and Egypt participated in an audit judgement experiment, which required them to indicate their beliefs about the risk of fraud and error at the planning stage of a hypothetical audit and evaluate the truthfulness of explanations provided by the client management. The authors examined whether their professional scepticism was influenced by accountability.

The results indicate professional scepticism differs significantly between cultures in some situations. The fact that culture influences scepticism suggests that even when auditors use the same standards (such as ISA 240 and ISA 600), they are likely to be applied inconsistently, even within the same firm. The authors, therefore, recommend that international bodies issue additional guidance on cultural values and consider these cultural differences when designing or adopting auditing standards.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines whether culture moderates the impact of accountability on auditors’ professional scepticism using Egyptian and Australian (Middle Eastern and Western) auditors. Prior literature suggests that individuals subject to accountability pressure increase their cognitive effort and vigilance to detect fraud and error. As the authors find evidence that culture moderates accountability pressure and as accountability affects scepticism, they add to the literature suggesting that culture can influence professional scepticism.

This paper aims to contribute to the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature by providing holistic insights into financial analysts’ personal values, perceived behavioural risk and investment decisions relating to the social aspects of CSR. Specifically, this paper examines whether analysts’ personal values, such as religiosity, spirituality and social consciousness, influence their investment decisions relating to a highly profitable firm that is alleged of exploiting labour rights. This study also examines the mediating role of analysts’ perceived behavioural risk between personal values and investment decisions.

Data were collected, using a scenario-based survey, from 145 financial analysts at both public and private companies in Pakistan.

The results show that analysts’ values, including religiosity, spirituality and social consciousness, have a significant negative impact on their investment decisions. The results also demonstrate that perceived behavioural risk mediates the relationship between these values and investment decisions.

This study has implications for the globalised business world, regulators and researchers for incorporating personal and ethical values into risk and investment decision-making.

This study establishes the importance of analysts’ personal values in risky investment decision-making.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of translation equivalence in extant research on translation in accounting: What is the equivalence that is expected of translation, and how is it assumed to come into being? This paper presents a coherent, theoretically informed approach to how different views on equivalence are connected to the objective of international comparability in financial accounting and how related, often-underlying assumptions intertwine in this discussion.

This paper takes an interdisciplinary approach by utilizing equivalence theories from the discipline of translation studies. It canvasses two dichotomy-like approaches – natural versus directional equivalence and formal versus dynamic equivalence – to compose a theoretical framework within which to analyze 25 translation-related papers discussing accounting harmonization published from 1989 to 2018.

This paper presents evidence of theoretical contradictions likely to affect the development of translation research in accounting if they go unrecognized. Moreover, the analysis suggests that these contradictions are likely to originate in the assumptions of mainstream accounting research, which neglect both the constructed nature of equivalence and the socially constructed nature of accounting concepts.

Despite the significance of translation for the objective of international comparability, this paper is the first comprehensive theoretical approach to equivalence in accounting research. It responds to a recognized demand for studying equivalence and its limitations, challenges many of the expectations accounting research places on translation and discusses the possible origins of related assumptions.

This paper chronicles Jill McKinnon's theoretical and methodological contributions to international accounting research generally and socio-cultural research specifically over a 25-year period, 1981–2006. The purposes are: (1) to apprise contemporary and future researchers in international accounting, working with a socio-cultural lens, of a major contributor and contribution to the historical origin and development of that lens; and (2) to revisit and reappraise McKinnon's identification of critical theoretical and methodological cautions to guide future research in international accounting.

The paper provides a historical narrative and contemporary appraisal of: (1) McKinnon's seminal doctoral research into the Japanese system of corporate reporting regulation using a holistic and dynamic socio-cultural model of social systems change; and (2) her contribution to the advancement of cross-cultural international accounting research including her critique of that research leading to the identification of cautions, the recognition and observance of which are critical to the development of contemporary and future research. The narrative is informed by historical context of time and space, and imbued and interwoven with the personal story of McKinnon both as human and humane.

McKinnon's research invoking holistic theoretical and methodological perspectives provides a continuing template and pathway to guide contemporary and future international accounting researchers and to shape the development of international accounting research. Her career, research and humanity leave a legacy distilled into four themes that serve as counsels for accounting research and researchers; eclecticism of world-view and method choice, rigour, holism and the importance of collegiality with and to the accounting research community.

The paper provides original insights into the personality, career development and research of an important contributor to international accounting research specifically and interdisciplinary research in accounting generally. The paper demonstrates empirically the importance of historical analysis, contextualized by time, space and person, in understanding and informing the present state of international accounting research and, hence, linking past, present and future.

Accountability within the framework of circular economy (CE) is unknown even though the concept of CE is increasingly gaining momentum among governments, policymakers and academics. The purpose of this study is to investigate how accountability expresses itself in the CE.

This study draws on the institutional logics theory and adopted an exploratory qualitative study aimed at eliciting stakeholders’ perspectives on how accountability manifests in the context of CE. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews of cross section of Ghanaians. Respondents were recruited using the purposeful sampling method, and data saturation was reached with 35 respondents. Concurrent data collection and analysis were carried out, and emerging themes were investigated as the research progressed.

The results indicate that accountability manifestations take on a variety of forms and shapes through both formal and informal processes within the circularity space. The specific areas of accountability manifestations are through the social system embedded in the society, through the organization’s responsibility and transparency, through regular reporting to stakeholders using appropriate metrics, through agency and answerability to relevant stakeholders and through governance systems embedded within social interaction. Additionally, this study discovered that accountability manifestations would contribute to the firm’s sustainability by enhancing competitive advantage through stakeholder engagement, improving risk management and promoting creativity and innovation.

Given an apparent gap in the literature on circularity and accountability, as well as a call for further studies on the reflections of accountability within the CE, this study provides empirical evidence to fill these gaps.