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The purpose of this paper is to examine how firms’ accounting quality affects bank loan contracting in seven emerging markets and whether these relationships are affected by borrowers’ governance standards.

The study sample period is 1999-2007 because the syndicated loan market was severely affected by the East Asian financial crisis of 1998 and the US financial crisis of 2008. The final sample includes 719 loan observations for 75 firms in seven emerging markets.

The authors find that syndicated lenders provide loans with more favorable terms such as larger amounts, longer maturity and lower interest spread to borrowers in emerging markets with higher accounting quality. The authors also find that the influences of accounting quality on syndicated loan contracting for borrowers in emerging markets exist only with higher country- and firm-level governance rankings. The results of this paper suggest that lenders place more value on accounting numbers generated by borrowers in emerging markets with stronger internal and country governance frameworks.

Overall, this research provides new insights about how accounting quality affects the contract design. Specifically, the extant literature has demonstrated the effects of accounting quality on financial contracts in developed countries (e.g. Bharath et al., 2008). The authors extend this analysis to borrowers in emerging markets and confirm a similar result. Most notably, the authors explore whether the relationship between accounting quality and syndicated loan contracts is influenced by borrowers’ country- and firm-level governance, and find that accounting quality matters only when accompanied by high-quality governance. This research provides new insights about how accounting quality and governance standards affect the terms of borrowing contracts in emerging markets.

To provide a view of quality in accounting education from the perspective of a critical stakeholder group – academic accountants. The identification of this view adds to the growing discussions around quality, and how it is assured in higher education.

Applying a framework for defining quality in higher education to an accounting context, a postal survey questionnaire was sent to academic accountants at 39 Australian universities to gather data about their views of quality in accounting education.

Academic accountants view quality, as currently defined and promoted in their immediate working environment, differently to their views about how quality should be defined and promoted. As a consequence, quality assurance and improvement systems may be currently designed to assure quality that is promoted in accounting education, rather than quality that ought to be promoted.

Using a postal survey to gather data on the complex issue of “quality” might not always provide the richness of data that may be collected during face‐to‐face survey interviews.

The findings of this study provide valuable input into the discussion around the design of quality assurance and improvement systems in higher education generally, and for accounting education specifically.

In the absence of any previous empirical research that has sought to identify these perceptions, the findings fill the gap in the literature by clearly identifying the views of quality in accounting education from a key stakeholder group – academic accountants.

This study focuses on a survey of chief financial officers (CFOs) in public firms in Japan concerning the following six points: the importance of the definition earnings quality; higher quality earnings; the determinants of earnings quality; prevalence, magnitude, and motivation of earnings management; accounting that influences earnings quality; and misrepresenting of earnings. The results are following: first, Japanese CFOs define earnings quality as earnings accurately reflecting economic reality, earnings accurately reflecting the results of operations, and earnings backed by cash flows, earnings sustainability, recurring, and consistent, and earnings reflecting long-term trend importance. Second, Japanese firms consider earnings that reflect consistent reporting choices over time as higher quality. They do not consider that earnings having accruals that are eventually realized as cash flow as higher earnings quality. Third, Japanese CFOs indicate that 30% of earnings quality is impacted by firm characteristics such as firm’s business model, industry, and macroeconomic conditions. Surprisingly, the influence of the board of directors is greater than the impact of their internal controls. Fourth, as for the determinants of earnings quality, CFOs consider that more than 70% of Japanese CFOs do not allow the discretion and that accounting standards limit their ability to report higher earning quality. Fifth, Japanese CFOs consider that higher earnings are influenced by accounting principles such as policies that match expenses with revenues and policies that rely on fair value accounting as much as possible. Sixth, CFOs themselves predict that 50% of Japanese firms use discretions and that they use 20% of earnings per share (EPS). Since there is inside and outside pressure to hit earnings benchmarks, Japanese firms possess the motivation to use earnings to misrepresent economic performance, Japanese managers see a red flag when generally accepted accounting principle’s earnings do not correlate with cash flow from operations.

Purpose – The overall purpose of this study is to investigate whether literacy levels and external user-pressure by the Uganda Revenue Authority affect the perceived quality of accounting information of Ugandan SMEs.

Design/methodology/approach – A postal questionnaire survey of 98 SMEs drawn from Kampala, Uganda was undertaken. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression was used to determine whether literacy levels and external user-pressure affect the quality of accounting information controlling for firm size, accounting qualification and firm age.

Findings – The findings suggest that literacy levels and external user-pressure influence the perceived quality of accounting information. Accounting qualification and firm age were also found to be positively associated with the quality of accounting information. However, there is no significant relationship between firm size and quality of accounting information.

Originality/value – The study provides evidence of the effect of literacy and external user-pressure on the quality of accounting information in a developing country where such evidence does not currently exist.

Implications – Since accounting information is important for economic growth, the Ugandan government needs to spend more resources to improve the literacy especially among the SMEs. The Uganda Revenue Authority also needs to maintain pressure on SMEs to improve the quality of information provided by SMEs since such information is important for assessing tax payable.

The study aims at reviewing a synthesis of disclosure, transparency, and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) implementation in an attempt to provide directions for future research. Prior research overwhelmingly supports that the IFRS adoption or effective implementation of IFRS will enhance high-quality financial reporting, transparency, enhance the country’s investment environment, and foreign direct investment (FDI) (Dayanandan, Donker, Ivanof, & Karahan, 2016; Gláserová, 2013; Muniandy & Ali, 2012). However, some researchers provide conflicting evidence that developing countries implementing IFRS are probably not going to encounter higher FDI inflows (Gheorghe, 2009; Lasmin, 2012). It has also been argued that the IFRS adoption decreases the management earnings in countries with high levels of financial disclosure. In general, the study indicates that the adoption of IFRS has improved the financial reporting quality. The common law countries have strong rules to protect investors, strict legal enforcement, and high levels of transparency of financial information. From the extensive structured review of literature using the Scopus database tool, the study reviewed 105 articles, and in particular, the topic-related 94 articles were analysed. All 94 articles were retrieved from a range of 59 journals. Most of the articles (77 of 94) were published 2010–2018. The top five journals based on the citations are Journal of Accounting Research (187 citations), Abacus (125 citations), European Accounting Review (107 citations), Journal of Accounting and Economics (78 citations), and Accounting and Business Research (66 citations). The most-cited authors are Daske, Hail, Leuz, and Verdi (2013); Daske and Gebhardt (2006); and Brüggemann, Hitz, and Sellhorn (2013). Surprisingly, 65 of 94 articles did not utilise the theory. In particular, four theories have been used frequently: agency theory (15), economic theory (5), signalling theory (2), and accounting theory (2). The study calls for future research on the theoretical implications and policy-related research on disclosure and transparency which may inform the local and international standard setters.

The purpose of this study is to explore the continuity and stability of the impact of accounting information quality on cash holdings, and the moderating effect of this relationship on state ownerships and local appointments.

Based on China's companies from 2011 to 2019, the authors divided cross-section and panel samples, adopted a linear and classification model and performed grouping regression.

The authors find that: first, the quality of corporate accounting information can significantly improve the level of cash holding, giving play to the strategic value effect of cash holding. But that boost is based on economies being able to solve agency problems. Second, the reduction of earnings management and the improvement of accounting information quality of NSOEs improve the level of cash holdings, while SOEs are on the contrary. Third, local appointments can play to the emotional strengths of their hometowns and play a synergistic role in this relationship, but the supervision effect of remote appointments is not obvious.

Through endogeneity and other tests, the conclusion is robust. Based on the agency and information asymmetry theory, the authors considered China's institutional and cultural factors, optimized accounting information's measurement and expanded the research boundary of the accounting field. The authors believe that applicable scenarios should be fully considered in the concluding relationship between accounting information quality and cash holdings. Enterprises should give full play to the advantages of cash holdings in strategic decision-making and financial efficiency, improve the quality of accounting information and also consider state ownerships and the differences in directors' emotions to reduce internal agency costs.

This study explores the impact mechanism of corporate digital transformation (CDT) on the quality of accounting information.

Samples of A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2007 to 2020 are used as a research sample. The empirical analysis is based on the ordinary least squares regression model, and mediation and moderation effect models were used in further analysis.

This study finds that CDT enhances accounting information quality by alleviating the agency problem. This positive effect is more significant among firms that exhibit less media coverage, have low industry competition and are not subject to cyber-attack.

This study extends the economic consequences of CDT and enriches the literature on the factors that affect accounting information quality. Further, this study's findings guide the government to actively promote CDT, facilitate the digital upgrading of industries and improve accounting information quality and efficiency in capital markets.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss empirical research examining the impact of International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) adoption and board governance on the accounting quality, in terms of relevance and faithful representation.

The research uses a sample of 454 observations of publicly listed companies on the Indonesian Stock Exchange for the fiscal year that ends on December 31, 2008 through 2011. Relevance is measured by predictive value, whereas faithful representation is measured by absolute discretionary accrual as an inverse measure. Board governance is measured by the board of commissioner score whereas IFRS adoption is measured by the percentage of IFRS adopted. The data used in this study are obtained both from Indonesian Capital Market Directory, Indonesian Stock Exchange database, and from company annual reports.

This research found evidence of a positive association of IFRS adoption on the relevance of accounting information quality. With respect to faithful representation, this study proves a positive association after IFRS adoption. This research also found that board governance has a positive impact on accounting information quality after IFRS adoption both in relevance and faithful representation. This result is in line with investor’s expectations that fair value IFRS adoption enhances the relevance of accounting information.

This study provides further evidence on the effect of IFRS adoption and board of governance on accounting information quality using data from Indonesia. Moreover, this study measures and tests both dimensions of earnings quality which are relevance and faithful representation and portrays a complete story about the quality of earnings. This study uses the qualitative characteristics of accounting information as proxies for accounting quality, so that it enriches the accounting literature about the role of accounting standards in financial reporting quality.

This study aims to examine whether the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) leads to accounting quality improvements in Egypt as a code-law country. In particular, the study examines earnings management, the construct often used to assess accounting quality.

The study compares earnings management practice for Egyptian listed companies before (2000-2006) and after (2007-2009) the adoption of IFRS.

The findings of the study reveal that accounting quality, as measured by earnings management, has decreased in post-adoption period compared to pre-adoption period. IFRS are set up to provide high-quality financial reporting. However, this cannot be achieved solely by a regulatory requirement to follow. The accounting system is a complementary component of the country’s overall institutional system. Institutional improvements did not simultaneously take place by the Egyptian government around the adoption of IFRS. The Egyptian government did not introduce a more effective enforcement system, mandatory corporate governance regulations, investor protection mechanisms and sufficient institutional knowledge of IFRS during that period. Thus, even if IFRS are higher quality standards, the institutional features of Egyptian market could eliminate any improvement in accounting quality arising from adopting IFRS.

The results of the study are consistent with prior research suggesting that the adoption of IFRS, which are generally perceived to be of higher quality than domestic standards, does not necessarily lead to higher accounting quality in code-law countries like Egypt. The overall results indicate that incentives dominate accounting standards in determining accounting quality in Egypt.

The main reason why countries adopt IFRS invariably is to improve accounting quality. It is, therefore, of interest to ascertain if this goal has been met, especially, in code-law countries such as Egypt.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between regional institution and accounting quality.

This study investigates whether and to what extent the convergence to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) improves Chinese firms’ accounting quality. It also examines the role regional institutions play in this process. The focus is on two aspects of accounting quality: the accrual aggressiveness and the timely loss recognition. Specifically, the study tests: whether the convergence to IFRS significantly lowers the accrual aggressiveness proxied by the magnitude of discretionary accruals (DA); whether the convergence to IFRS significantly enhances the timely loss recognition proxied by the likelihood of reporting large negative net income; and whether the effects of convergence to IFRS on accounting quality vary with the quality of regional institutions.

The findings show that convergence to IFRS generally was accompanied by increases in DA and decreases in timely loss recognition for Chinese firms. Further analysis on the development of regional institutions reveals that both changes in accrual aggressiveness and timely loss recognition are more pronounced for firms located in regions with a lower level of development in the legal environment.

This study contributes to the accounting literature in several ways. First, it extends the accounting literature regarding institutional factors by examining the association between regional institutions and accounting quality. Second, by adopting a within-country setting, the study avoids such problems of cross-country comparisons as confounding factors caused by country-specific accounting rules and regulations, differences in infrastructure and culture, and other potential endogeneity problems (Chan et al., 2010). Third, the attention paid to the European and US application of IFRS overshadows the application and effects of IFRS in emerging markets. By examining China, the world largest emerging economy in the process of economic transition, this study sheds light on the effect of convergence to IFRS on accounting quality for emerging or transitional economies.