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This study aims to explore and identify the factors that affect Saudi Arabia's decision concerning the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and particularly the resistive factors that delay full IFRS adoption. It identifies the way in which Saudi Arabia’s social, political, educational and religious context influence the adoption of IFRS and the delay in doing so.

A mixed methodology is used in this research, including both quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews) data analysis. Whereas, using mixed methods led to enhance the results.

The findings show that globalisation, accounting bodies and political circumstances were found to be positively related to IFRS adoption in Saudi Arabia. In contrast, culture and accounting development were found to have a negative impact on the IFRS adoption. Interestingly, the results showed that religion has no effect on IFRS adoption in Saudi Arabia.

This paper can be of use to both researchers and practitioners interested in investigating more resistive factors that could affect future IFRS adoption in developing countries. Moreover, the findings could be useful to senior managers and legislators in Saudi Arabia firms, in relation to decisions about enhancing the quality of adopting IFRS.

This research provides an important contribution to the existing literature by using a comparative method to present an in-depth exploration of the factors that affect countries, drawing on the framework of the neo-institutional perspective in a developing country.

This study aims to examine the implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Saudi Arabia. It investigates how the adoption of IFRS has affected four critical areas in the financial statements of publicly listed companies: profit and loss statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement and retained equity statement in Saudi Arabia. The paper also explores the essential factors/drivers that influence the adoption of IFRS and its implication in Saudi Arabia.

Data was obtained from Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) listed companies from eleven industries in Saudi Arabia. This cross-sectional study analyses critical financial data across eleven distinctive industries. To identify the impact of adopting IFRS, the researchers use a paired t-test to evaluate seven key elements of financial statements underlying the critical areas: non-current asset, current asset, total assets, shareholders equity, non-current liability, current liability and total liability. The sample captures cross-sectional data from well-developed global industries in Saudi Arabia, pre- and post-implementation of IFRS. Thus, the analysis of the sample data gives a representative picture of the population of the Saudi Arabian industry.

The results reveal significant differences between GAAP and IFRS reporting standards in the measurement, recognition and classification of non-current assets and liabilities. The differences are expressed in the variance between the GAAP and IFRS. Specifically, the differences between GAAP and IFRS demonstrated by the t-value are significant and reliable (respectively, 5.3 and 4.1). Additionally, the t-value is validated by the p-value, which in both was significant.

The outcomes of this research will benefit accounting information users, practitioners, researchers and regulators. Since Saudi Arabia’s policymakers have mandated the full adoption of IFRS in financial reporting, the study contributes to the adoption of IFRS practices throughout the Saudi industry. Adopting full IFRS standards requires widespread IFRS expertise to cope with the transition.

This study advances research into the perennial issues associated with changes in reporting towards IFRS standards, especially in Saudi Arabia. The contribution to theory and practice enters new and fruitful areas.

The paper investigates attitudes towards and perceptions of the adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) for small and medium-sized entities (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia, immediately before and during the period of adoption.

The study adopts an interpretive approach, using a new institutional theory framework, drawing on concepts of institutional isomorphism and institutional logics. Research was undertaken using extensive interviews of business owners and managers, accountants, auditors, regulators and others. Interviewees were identified using snowball sampling, and the paper discusses the appropriateness of this method for research in management in MENA countries.

The adoption of IFRS, and in particular IFRS for SMEs, in Saudi Arabia can be understood best as an example of mimetic isomorphism, as many respondents suggested that the country adopted these standards in order to emulate other countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council and the G20 group of countries.

The study examines issues relating to the adoption of IFRS for SMEs in an emerging economy where adoption was not imposed by international financial institutions.

In addition to being the first study of the adoption of IFRS for SMEs in Saudi Arabia, the paper examines snowball sampling as a particularly useful method in MENA countries.

The Saudi Organization for Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA) requires that International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), as endorsed in Saudi Arabia, be used by all listed and unlisted companies. This study aims to provide insight into IFRS implementation problems, based on a survey sent to Saudi Arabian companies listed on Tadawul, the Saudi stock market (i.e. financial hub in the Middle East).

The survey focused on the impact that IFRS conversion has had on companies, their accounting and their finance strategies. The benefits and challenges of the adoption of IFRS are analyzed, including matters pertaining to the level of understanding and experience with IFRS, perceptions about the quality of IFRS and the impact of adoption of IFRS on consolidated equity and net income.

The survey had a response rate of 72 per cent. The results indicate a majority of respondents support conversion to IFRS as it results in higher quality financial reporting; the most important expected benefits of adopting IFRS include greater reporting transparency and improved comparability with other businesses; other expected benefits include harmonization of internal and external reporting, and increased cross-border investment opportunities; the IFRS process is costly and ties up resources because of its complexity and training needed and companies expect increased volatility in reported financial results that will impact share option plans and/or other incentive plans tied to profits. However, the authors find strong support among preparers of the financial statements for IFRS, as evidenced by higher agreement among respondents to the survey on the benefits of adopting IFRS, rather than on the costs of its adoption. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the likelihood of Saudi Arabian firms that are in favor of adopting IFRS decreases if the audit firm is one of the Big 4. The reason for this negative relationship could be that the cost of transition toward IFRS will be high. Therefore, Saudi Arabian firms will not favor a transition toward IFRS when their audit firm belongs to the Big 4. Most difficult to implement IFRS, as listed by respondents, include those on financial instruments, revenue, leases and employee benefits.

The authors show how economic and environmental factors play a critical role in the IFRS implementation process. This study should be important to all countries worldwide that are in the process of adopting IFRS.

The paper aims to provide empirical evidence of the impact of IFRS adoption on the value relevance of accounting information in the emerging market of Saudi Arabia.

The sample consists of 98 non-financial listed firms operating in Saudi Arabia from 2014 to 2019, representing the years before and after IFRS adoption. The authors apply basic and extended price models to examine the value relevance of select accounting figures.

The authors findings provide evidence that accounting information is, generally, value relevant to the Saudi Arabian capital market. However, mixed results exist for particular accounting variables. Both earnings and cash flows are value-relevant in the period before and after IFRS adoption; equity is only relevant in the post-adoption period. Furthermore, IFRS adoption also increases the explanatory power of earnings. An increase in the value relevance of earnings and equity hurts the value relevance of cash flows. The effects are moderated by leverage and dividend policy.

The authors contribute to the ongoing discussion of the economic effects of IFRS adoption in emerging markets. The empirical findings show that initial concerns about IFRS adoption, as reflected by the negative coefficient within the regression analysis, are mitigated once the usefulness of the individual accounting variables published in financial statements is investigated.

Under a gradual long-term plan of the Saudi Stock Market (TADWUAL) from 2016, Saudi Arabia decided to work with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) board to fully adopt its accounting standards. Saudi Arabia has undergone several reforms in governance and standards of internal controls are changing rapidly. This study aims to assess whether IFRS adoption has any moderator role in the relationship between disclosure quality and firm-specific characteristics in the Saudi Stock Market.

This study assesses whether IFRS adoption has any moderator role in the relationship between disclosure quality and firm-specific characteristics in the Saudi Stock Market. The key research hypotheses postulate that compared to IFRS status, after adoption, several independent variables influence the disclosure level. The analysis covers a local sample of 184 Saudi listed firms over the period 2016 to 2020. Using an in-depth content analysis technique, the voluntary disclosure and number of annual report pages are measured manually and year by year to capture levels and unique characteristics. The authors apply cross-sectional regression, first difference method, Pooled OLS and feasible general least square estimations. The mean of disclosure level increases from 33.03% in 2016 to 56.14% in 2020.

The results reveal that the vast majority of firm-specific characteristics were significant in pre-IFRS adoption period. First difference analysis shows a significant impact of firm size and non-executive composition on the disclosure level. The authors confirm that IFRS adoption plays a critical role in the quality of firms’ financial reports and supports to create a conducive economic environment in Saudi Arabia.

First, the implementation of IFRS adoption should impact the Saudi accounting information and disclosure quality in Saudi context markedly. Second, firm-specific characteristics align with corporate governance are the main determinants of accounting information and transparency; therefore, focusing on this angle enables regulators and policymakers to mitigate uncertainty and asymmetric information. Third, the findings of this research state that there is a negative relationship between disclosure quality and board meetings. This encourages policymakers to reconsider the number of board meetings in firms that was not as high as in the developed markets. Notwithstanding all previous implications, it is recommended that future research undertake a various quasi-experimental design such as a difference-in-difference approach to estimate the causal effect of corporate governance mechanisms on IFRS 7 mandatory disclosure requirements on in Saudi Arabia context.

There is a lack of studies on this realm and such as these studies will enrich the understanding of aspects of IFRS adoption and contribute to the prior empirical literature. Importantly, the extend of this sample into other Gulf Cooperation Council countries and exhibition the difference effect can be very useful to enrich the knowledge of IFRS adoption aspects in corporate disclosure and accounting information quality.

Saudi Arabia has undergone several reforms in governance, and their standards of internal controls are changing rapidly. This has been attributed to the importance of providing guidelines, practices and regulations for listed companies. One of the major turning points of financial reporting quality in Saudi listed firms was adoption of IFRSs. This adoption deems to be necessity in ensuring the highest level of transparency and information reliability. Based on the findings of this research, the present investigations set up a platform and furnish many implications for policymakers, companies’ board of directors, financial analysts and other related authorities. The results should provide policymakers with greater insight of the relationship between disclosure quality and corporate-specific characteristics throughout the IFRS adoption periods. Thus, the results derived from this study can be effective and useful for the IFRS adoption committee in the Saudi Organization for Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA). According to the best of the authors’ knowledge and based on official secondary information sourced from the SOCPA website, there are several standards that are subject to difficulties in measurement and are modified from time to time, such as: IFRS1, IFRS8, IFRS12, IFRS16 and IFRS18.

This study aims to examine the impact of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) mandate and differences in national institutional quality on the underpricing of Initial Public Offering (IPO) companies.

Multiple Difference-in-Differences (DiD) ordinary least squares estimations were conducted for 100 corporations listed on the Saudi Arabian stock market using country-level institutional quality data from 2005 to 2017.

IFRS requirements and improvements in institutional quality have a combined effect on minimizing IPO underpricing. The analysis of the combined impact of IFRS requirements and differences in transparency revealed that IPO vendors leave $5 on average for IPO investors to cash out post the IFRS mandate, compared to $29 previously. Thus, IFRS serves as a quality certification instrument that alleviates IPO investors’ ex ante uncertainties, even in nations with undeveloped institutions.

The findings may be beneficial to researchers and policymakers. The results suggest that institutional quality enhancements and obligatory IFRS implementation highlight IFRS’s synergistic influence on the IPO market. While European harmonization efforts drove the adoption of IFRS in Europe in 2005, Saudi Arabia’s adoption of IFRS is not being driven by such initiatives (Daske et al., 2008; Persakis and Iatridis 2017). In reality, when IFRS was officially imposed in Saudi Arabia in 2008, it, like many other emerging market nations, made considerable reforms to its formal institutions. However, research on the combined impact of IFRS and disparities in institutional quality in emerging IPO markets remains sparse. Emerging markets represent more than half of economies that use IFRS. Therefore, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to conduct an empirical investigation to identify this combined effect in emerging countries using the DiD analytical technique. Equity market legislators remain concerned regarding IPO underpricing, as it has a detrimental influence on economic growth (Bova and Pereira, 2012; Jamaani and Ahmed, 2021; Mehmood et al., 2021). Depending on the degree of information asymmetry in national stock markets, underpricing costs increase the cost of going public for entrepreneurs. Consequently, prospective private firms are discouraged from accessing equity financing through the stock markets. This is likely to impede private sector development plans, causing a negative effect on economic growth.

Emerging countries represent over 50% of the IFRS mandating economies. However, there is insufficient research on the combined effect of IFRS requirements and improvements in institutional quality in developing IPO markets. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first empirical attempt to identify this combined effect in one of the largest developing countries. The results may aid academics and policymakers in better understanding the interaction between these two variables.

This study aims to examine the short- and long-lived effects of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) mandate on the quality of reporting information of initial public offering (IPO) firms in emerging market economies.

The study used several difference-in-differences models for a sample comprising 102 Saudi Arabian IPO firms for 2003–2017.

It found that mandating the application of the IFRS had a significant short-lived but no long-lived effect on IPO firms’ information asymmetry. When information asymmetry was high such as in the primary market, the IFRS succeeded in alleviating the underpricing of IPO firms. Conversely, in the secondary market, with negligible information asymmetry, the IFRS was not beneficial for the long-term performance of companies in the IPO market.

This study is the first of its kind in the emerging market context and has important implications for IPO investors and analysts, IFRS-IPO researchers and policymakers in emerging economies. The results empirically confirmed that the IFRS mandate had solely a short-lived effect and no long-lasting impact, on the problem of asymmetric information in the IPO market. The effectiveness of the IFRS in producing quality financial reporting is contingent upon large-scale information asymmetry and vanishes when investors and analysts have abundant information about listed firms, even for emerging economies such as Saudi Arabia.

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.

This study aims to examine the economic consequences of the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Saudi Arabia. More specifically, the study examines the impact of the mandatory adoption of IFRS on the accounting-based performance measures.

Data on study variables were obtained manually from the published financial statements of 67 of listed companies in the Saudi stock market during the period 2014–2019. The study addressed the research hypotheses by comparing the accounting-based performance measures computed under the Saudi accounting standards for three years (2014–2016) before the mandatory adoption of IFRS and the corresponding three years (2017–2019) after the mandatory adoption of IFRS. The Mann–Whitney U Test was used to investigate the significance of differences between the values of performance measures in the pre- and post-mandatory adoption periods.

The findings of the study revealed that there were no significant differences between the values of accounting-based performance measures related to the three performance categories (i.e. profitability, liquidity and leverage) in the post-mandatory adoption period (IFRS) compared to the values of these measures in the pre-mandatory adoption period (Saudi accounting standards).

The results of the study indicated that there is a good convergence between the Saudi accounting standards that were implemented before 2017 and the IFRS that began to be applied starting from 2017. This convergence resulted in a low significant impact of IFRS on the financial statements of companies and then on the accounting-based performance measures calculated from them. However, this study suffers from some limitations, the most important of which is the small sample size as a result of the small number of listed companies in the Saudi market during the study period.

Although the impact of the adoption of IFRS have always been a subject of intense research in developed countries, the study of the impact of the adoption of IFRS in developing countries still limited. This study contributes to the literature by examining the economic consequences of adopting IFRS in Saudi Arabia as one of developing countries.