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This study aims to examine whether there are differences between financial statements prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and financial statements prepared in accordance with local accounting standards in terms of its ability to present the financial conditions of companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange as one of the emerging markets.

Data on study variables were obtained from the published financial statements of 67 of listed companies in the Saudi Stock Exchange during the period 2014–2019. The study addressed the research hypotheses by using Altman Z-score model. Both the T-test and Wilcoxon rank test were used to investigate the significance of differences between the values of Z-score and the individual variables included in the model in the pre- and post-IFRS mandatory adoption periods.

The results revealed a decrease in the values of Z-score as well as the values of the individual variables included in the model in the period following the adoption of IFRS than it was before the adoption of IFRS, which indicates the ability of IFRS to show the financial conditions of companies more transparently than local accounting standards. However, the results of the T-test and Wilcoxon test showed that these decreases were not statistically significant.

This study has some limitations, including the small sample size as a result of the small size of the Saudi Stock Exchange, As well as the reliance of this study only on the Altman model with its five variables in assessing financial conditions without examining the impact of other factors that may affect the financial conditions of companies.

Financial conditions of the companies have important implications for multiple parties such as management, government, investors and others as an early warning sign that enables them to take the necessary measures early before the actual bankruptcy occurs and what results in costs.

Although assessing financial conditions of the companies is one of the basic uses of accounting information, this topic has not received sufficient attention as a means to test the benefits of adopting IFRS, especially in emerging markets such as Saudi Stock Exchange. This is the first study to examine the impact of adopting IFRS on the transparency of financial reporting in assessing financial conditions in Saudi Arabia.

The purpose of this study is to identify, recap and evaluate the state-of-the-art linkage between International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and earnings management (EM).

A bibliometric analysis of 249 publications from the Web of Science (WoS) database was carried out, employing both the techniques of performance analysis and science mapping and the Bibliometrix R and VOSviewer tools.

The results of the performance analysis suggest that the publication and citation trends of the interplay of the IFRS and EM fields show an upward trend over time that most of the influential institutions emanate from the US and a significant percentage of articles published in this field emanate from high-quality journals. Science mapping via co-authorship analysis elucidates that more collaborative efforts among authors are needed in the future in this field. Bibliographic coupling analysis bifurcates the studies into six clusters and reveals the major themes and their evolution. Co-word analysis unfolds emerging trends that could be further explored, thus becoming possible future research avenues.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no other study has attempted a bibliometric analysis of research on the relationship between IFRS and EM. This article fills this research gap and makes its contribution to the scientific community by presenting recent developments in this body of knowledge and suggesting future research avenues.

This paper aims to examine the theoretical underpinnings of international financial reporting standards (IFRS)-related studies and offers directions for theoretical and empirical research. Specifically, this study examines the main theories in IFRS adoption research (i.e. adoption, compliance and effects).

The sample contains 67 empirical papers that have used theories and was collected from Web of Science database. This study uses a systematic review technique.

Generally, the review shows the prevalent and pervasive use of institutional theories of isomorphism across all the three areas of IFRS adoption. Particularly, regarding IFRS adoption stream, this study finds the institutional theory as a dominant theory used to explain IFRS diffusion around the globe. For IFRS compliance, this study finds that the agency and the capital need theories are widely used. For IFRS adoption effects stream, this study finds a few studies using the contingency and neo-institutional theories. Overall, the review provides theoretical lens for IFRS adoption, IFRS compliance and IFRS adoption effects.

Given the lack of a well-defined set of theories in the domain of accounting, the findings provide further guidance on theory building within the field. Further, accounting regulators, academics and practitioners may benefit from the findings when explaining various changes in the world of accounting.

This study aims to examine the timing of corporate disclosure in the context of Georgia, an emerging market where a recent reform of corporate financial transparency mandated about 80,000 private sector entities to publicly disclose their annual financial statements.

The main analysis covers more than 4,000 large, medium, small and micro private sector entities, for which the data is obtained from the Ministry of Finance of Georgia. This paper builds an empirical model of logit/probit regression, with industry fixed and random effects to investigate the drivers of the corporate disclosure timing.

Findings suggest that the mean reporting time lag is 279 days after the fiscal year-end, that is nine days after the statutory deadline. Almost one-third (30%) of the entities miss the nine-month statutory deadline, while the timely filers almost unexceptionally file immediately before the deadline. Multivariate tests reveal that voluntarily filing entities completed the process significantly faster than those mandated to do so; audited financial statements take more time to be filed, whereas those with unqualified audit opinion or audited by large/international audit firms are filed faster than their counterparts. The author concludes that despite the overall high filing rates, the timing of corporate disclosure is not (yet) efficiently enforced in practice (but is progressing over time), whereas regulatory incentives prevail over market incentives among the timely filers.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that explores corporate disclosure timing incentives in the context of Georgia. This study extends prior literature on the timing of financial information from an emerging country’s private sector perspective, with juxtaposed market and regulatory incentives.

This article aims to identify and review existing studies on the adoption and compliance of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Africa.

The methodology involves a sole focus on studies conducted with an African sample, using a bibliometric method and data from the Web of Science (WoS) database. Visualizations from VOSViewer and Biblioshiny software are employed to identify the dominant authors, journals and countries contributing to research in the region.

The findings reveal existing collaborations among authors in the field. However, the study emphasizes the need for additional research to enhance the intellectual structure of the research domain, as the majority of related documents are concentrated within twenty articles with at least one citation.

The practical implications underscore the importance of collaboration in practice, emphasizing the need for cooperation among corporations, experts and regulatory agencies involved in IFRS adoption and compliance in Africa. By fostering collaborative efforts and knowledge-sharing among corporations, experts and regulatory agencies, practitioners can enhance their understanding, streamline implementation processes and improve compliance methods.

This review is one of the few to explicitly conduct a bibliometric review of IFRS adoption and compliance studies in Africa, providing a foundation for future research to determine the current direction of IFRS studies in this region.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to examine the relationship between institutional pressures and risk governance in financial institutions (FIs) in Uganda and to establish mediational role of collectivist orientation in the relationship between institutional pressures and risk governance in financial institutions in Uganda.

The study adopts a cross-sectional and quantitative research design. The authors employed Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (SmartPLS 3.3.0 for professionals) to test hypotheses.

The results indicate that institutional pressures is significantly associated with risk governance in FIs. The study also finds collectivist orientation partially mediates the relationship between institutional pressures and risk governance in FIs in Uganda.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study provides initial empirical evidence on the relationship between institutional pressures, collectivist orientation and risk governance using evidence from a developing African country – Uganda. Additionally, this study provides an initial evidence of the mediating role of collectivist orientation in the relationship between institutional pressures and risk governance in FIs.

The purpose of this study is to frame the dimensions of the external institutional environment, namely, cultural-cognitive, normative and regulative dimensions as the main actors in the organisational field. More precisely, Libyan commercial banks have been identified as empirical evidence, to identify constraints of the institutional environment governing the behaviour and decision-making of commercial banks, when adopting Islamic financial transactions.

A questionnaire has been designed for 14 Libyan commercial banks which is distributed to the Board of Directors, managers, directors of departments, and personnel. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and the measurement model by using the first-order and second-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) have been applied as essential steps to embody the conceptual framework and test the research hypotheses.

The results of the EFA indicated sufficient correlation among the dimensions of the external environment. The CFA supported this study’s hypotheses. The modelling showed that the cultural-cognitive, normative and regulative dimensions are institutional constraints impeding Libyan commercial banks’ adoption of Islamic financial transactions. Interestingly, the findings of the CFA align with the EFA findings in supporting the conceptual framework of the research. They portrayed that the cultural-cognitive dimension has been identified by explicit and implicit cognition.

This study systematically embodies the dimensions of the external institutional environment, namely, cultural-cognitive, normative and regulative dimensions, as the main factors in the organisational field to be conceptually rich lenses to investigate social considerations to reinforce institutional thought broadly. The results of this study were consistent with extant Islamic financial literature, reflecting symmetry and similarity across commercial banks, particularly at the first stage of adopting Islamic financial transactions.

When financial statements are public, the choice between alternative reporting regimes constitutes a signal that addresses external stakeholders. Generally, the choice of more complex regimes acts as a complement of firms' transparency. However, in the absence of audits, opportunistic behaviors could be incentivized. This study aims to test whether SMEs' choice between alternative accounting regimes is associated with earnings quality.

Drawing on the literature about accounting choices and earnings quality, this study investigates whether the same conclusions are confirmed for SMEs. Using a sample of 4,054 Italian companies and 12,114 observations, it compared four earnings quality proxies of a group of companies that opted for the “Full” rules and those of a subsample of the population of companies that applied the Simplified rules.

The results suggest that the signaling power of accounting rules' choice could lead to wrong conclusions for SMEs. Indeed, a positive relationship emerged (H1) between the choice of the “Full” rules and income smoothing behaviors, while the same choice appears to reduce the probability to disclose SPOS. Moreover, the results suggest that opportunistic behaviors are more frequent for firms that have settled in a “non-cooperative” social environment (H2).

This study could foster research on financial reporting quality in private firms.

Comparing the quality of financial statements drawn up according to two alternative accounting regimes could provide useful suggestions for both users and regulators.

The results contribute to the limited literature on the implications of differential reporting. Finally, it enriches the literature about heterogeneity in accounting quality within private firms.

This study aims to analyze why listed Taiwanese firms uniquely rejected the early adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in 2012. It investigates the underlying decision-making processes behind this policy reluctance to further understand the continuous phenomenon of rare voluntary IFRS adoption.

It reports on fieldwork evidence obtained in situ by in-depth interviewing in Mandarin. It uses qualitative methods, complemented by quantitative cost-benefit metrics of IFRS adoption. It presents five diverse illustrative case-study vignettes, using a judgment sample based on expert opinion.

While the net-benefits of implementing IFRS varied across firms, this study’s unanimous finding was that no firms (in the sample or population) adopted IFRS early, despite stated intentions to the contrary. The key reasons for shunning early IFRS adoption were found to be frequent changes in regulations, insufficient benefits from adopting IFRS and the undermining of comparability across companies, compounded with scarce preparation time. Further, this study found that the Taiwanese accounting regulator’s reluctance toward IFRS adoption, partly caused by a long-standing US influence, contributed to this anomalous outcome.

This study recommends two critical policy changes: more realistic timelines and less frequent regulatory changes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the reasons behind the anomaly of no early adoption of IFRS in Taiwan, using new primary data and illustrative case studies. Its novelty lies in extending understanding beyond the existing quantitative literature on accounting standards, using new “thick” qualitative evidence on motives for such choices and decision-making processes, which have been neglected in previous work.

In 2018, the International Financial Reporting Standard 9-Financial Instruments became mandatory, effectively changing the underlying accounting principles of financial instruments. This paper systematically reviews the academic literature on the implementation effects of IFRS 9, providing a coherent picture of the state of the empirical literature on IFRS 9.

The study thrives on a systematic review approach by analyzing existing academic studies along the following three broad categories: adoption and implementation, impact on financial reporting, and risk management and provisioning. The study concludes by providing research prospects to fill the identified gaps.

We document data-related issues, forecasting uncertainties and the interaction of IFRS 9 with other regulatory standards as implementation challenges encountered. Also, we observe cross-country heterogeneity in reporting quality. Furthermore, contrary to pre-implementation expectations, we find improvement in risk management. This suggests that despite the complexities of the new regulatory standard on financial instruments, it appears to be more successful in achieving the intended objective of enhancing better market discipline and transparency rather than being a regulatory overreach.

As the literature on IFRS 9 is burgeoning, we provide state-of-the-art guidance and direction for researchers with a keen interest in the economic significance and implications of IFRS 9 adoption. The study identifies gaps in the literature that require further research, specifically, IFRS 9 adoption and firm’s hedging activities, IFRS 9 implications on non-financial firms. Lastly, existing studies are mostly focused on Europe and underscore the need for more research in under-researched jurisdictions, particularly in Asia and Africa. Also, to standard setters, policymakers and practitioners, we provide some insight to aid the formulation and application of standards.