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Corporate social responsibility describes the role that society expects of business organizations. Because it is difficult to see societal norms in one's own society, comparative law can help us increase the salience of those norms in our own community. Looking at how a set of business laws uniform across 16 West and Central African countries lives in one of the member states, Cameroon, we see that society expresses its norms not only when behavior tracks the positive law, but also, and very importantly, when it diverges from that law. After studying examples of divergence in the South, specifically in the African country Cameroon, the chapter turns to the North. Using the United States as the illustration, and focusing on the role of business entities, the chapter identifies ways of opening the discussion among all political constituents, even those outside the traditional business community.

The article starts from the examination of the reasons of the recent trends towards legal integration and gives a brief overview on the system to pursue the objective of legal integration. Then the major form of legal integration in the African continent ‐ the OHADA ‐ is taken into consideration by giving the main features of this legal harmonization process. The article further focuses on the possibility of reaching harmonization of the legal rules on telecommunications in the countries belonging to the OHADA. The paper also presents the reasons in favour of such legal harmonization, the possible obstacles that can be faced, and suggests some hints for the drafting process of the possible future uniform act.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on circumvolutions taken by the accounting standard-setting process in French-speaking African countries which have delayed convergence toward IFRS standards and to identify how different factors shape accounting standards in a context in which post-colonial hysteresis interact with globalization.

This study uses archival data and interviews with key individual actors. Two case studies from two successive periods are contrasted: the design of the OCAM accounting standards in the 1970s, and the development of the SYSCOA/OHADA accounting standards during the 1990s before the partial adoption of IFRS.

The study shows the convergence toward international accounting standards in French-speaking African countries emerged from a complex, multimodal process mingling competition with collaboration and negotiation. They have followed a different path from most English-speaking African countries, where convergence to IAS/IFRS took place earlier and faster. The evidence indicates the significance of the interaction between the ex-colonization and the indigenous accounting standards, the importance of key actors and the level of the educational institutions.

No African written sources were located. Most of the sources used were French.

The paper includes implications for the standards setting in developing countries. The examination of the development of accounting rules in French-speaking African countries between 1960 and 2010 shows the complexity of the accounting standards’ diffusion dynamic.

This study provides novel insights over a 30-year period of accounting standards in French-speaking African countries. This research explains why IFRS have not yet adopted in French-speaking African countries as it was in English-speaking African countries.

The purpose of this study is to use empirical findings to identify the different forms of accountability practices existing in Cameroon microfinance institutions (MFIs) and explore how such practices have evolved and institutionalised within the microfinance sector in Cameroon through time.

This study is designed to investigate if the institutionalised accountability practices within the microfinance sector in Cameroon are a cure or a curse for poverty alleviation. This study is based on the new institutional sociology (NIS) and on a case study approach and combines in-depth interviews and secondary data sources.

This study identifies three principal forms of accountability practices common with MFIs in Cameroon: dysfunctional, manipulative and dribbling accountabilities.

This paper is novel because it extends the NIS into the microfinance sector and explains how conflicting institutional pressures resulting from differences of accountability practices can be resolved and also exposes the unintended consequences of both resistance and passive actions of local actors on microfinance, the poor and poverty alleviation.

Albeit the growing academic research on emerging economies corporate governance (CG) environments within accounting and finance literature, there exists a dearth of cross-country studies using a qualitative approach to understand practitioners’ behaviour vis-a-vis diffusion of international CG practices in emerging economies. This study aims to fill this oversight through a comparative analysis of the divergence and convergence of CG systems operational in three emerging economies (Cameroon, Kenya and Pakistan) while highlighting different institutional and contextual impacts on behaviour of governance actors. The paper uses an interface between critical realism and new institutional economics theory to explore the implementation and execution of CG in Cameroon, Kenya and Pakistan.

The study analysed 24 in-depth semi-structured interviews and conducted with key governance practitioners across the three countries.

The findings show that CG implementation processes in Cameroon, Kenya and Pakistan are nascent and driven by international forces rather than local initiatives. CG lacks institutional identity across the three countries as regulatory coercion acts as a key driver for CG adoption and practitioner accounts are mixed regarding the impact of CG on firm performance.

The paper evidences that the lack of governance identify, compliance and slow implementation process of governance regulations and its impact on firm performance in emerging economies is caused by the fact that local institutional characteristics prevalent in these economies may not be suitable for a “copy and paste” of Western form of governance regulations. Furthermore, governance actors do not see the relevance of recommended CG practices except as a regulatory burden.

The paper contributes to close the lacuna in the seemingly little qualitative comparative study that has examined practitioner’s perception vis-à-vis the diffusion of international governance practices in emerging economies. Specifically, it uncovers how different institutional and contextual factors impact on the behaviour of governance actors and how their behaviours may constrain adoption, implementation and compliance with recommended governance practices.

The purpose of this paper is to appraise existing literature on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Africa. It covers all 54 African countries and their membership in regional and international accounting bodies.

This paper uses qualitative research methods, including review and synthesis of a variety of archival materials.

Unlike the numerous variations in IFRS adoption on other continents, IFRS countries in Africa have adopted the standards as issued by International Accounting Standard Board (IASB). However, most countries are slow to implement the ROSC (AA) recommendations for IFRS adoption due to lack of institutional and professional capacity. With regards to the unintended consequences, IFRS adoption has made international professional qualifications such as Association of Certified Chartered Accountants popular in Africa; hence, national accounting qualifications are not attractive to prospective accountants. Similarly, IFRS adoption has created a competitive advantage for the Big4 audit firms because companies in IFRS countries prefer the services of the Big4 to that of the local audit firms.

It is concluded that international organisations that recommend IFRS to Africa, such as the IFRS foundation, IMF and World Bank, should build the sustainable professional and institutional capacity of the countries before persuading them to adopt IFRS, because in Africa, adopting a law is easy but operationalising it has always been the challenge.

This paper is an appraisal of existing literature on IFRS in Africa. In a bid to determine what exists and what is missing in the literature, the authors have reviewed three streams of studies, namely, adoption, compliance/harmonisation and consequences of IFRS in Africa, with the aim to suggest what remains to be investigated on IFRS in Africa.

This paper uses a systematic review approach including synthesis of a variety of archival materials. Articles on Africa were summarised under three main headings: adoption, compliance/harmonisation and consequences of IFRS.

This review finds limited research on IFRS in Africa. It reveals that although past cross-continent studies claimed to cover Africa, they are limited to only a few countries and mainly predominated by South Africa. The authors identified only one study that investigated the impact of economic and cultural factors on IFRS adoption in Africa and few cross-continent studies but considering only very few African countries. Regarding compliance, four studies concluded that compliance with IFRS is dependent on a firm’s characteristics. The authors also identified that some of the generalised findings from prior research on consequences of IFRS are of limited significance in the African context.

This study suggests the determinants of adoption, compliance and consequences of IFRS in Africa are different if studied separately. It identifies some gaps in the literature that require further research, specifically, IFRS on taxation, fair valuation practices and the institutional capacities of countries to implement the standards.

The purpose of this study is to review a synthesis of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) implementation in developing countries in an attempt to provide directions for future research. The in-depth analysis was performed with the use of the data analysis tool available in the Scopus databases. The study initially reviewed 145 papers and in particular 35 papers were analysed. Fifteen articles (43%) were published in seven journals including International Journal of Accounting, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Advances in Accounting, International Journal of Accounting and Information Management, Asian Review of Accounting, Journal of Applied Accounting Research, and Asian Journal of Business and Accounting. Specifically, 89% citations were from 14 articles, but 9 (25%) articles were without any citations. Most of the studies focus on qualitative followed by quantitative, and very few studies were based on mixed methods. Researchers should focus on few areas for future research on IFRS implementation in developing countries including theory implications, policy prescriptions, and case of particular standard.

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.