A comparative study of cultural influences on financial reporting in the U.S. and The Netherlands

Abstract

This paper argues that financial reporting and its regulation have multiple purposes reflecting each country's social, cultural, and political environments. Thus, the original idea of harmonization as moving towards uniformity in accounting standards across countries may not be achieved as long as social, cultural, and political differences exist across countries. An alternative approach is a reconcillation strategy where an agreement is reached on basic recognition and measurement criteria and on a framework that enables users to reconcile financial statements from different countries while it also satisfies those countries regulatory requirements. To support this argument, the paper presents evidence from a comparison of financial reporting in the U.S. and the Netherlands within their respective cultures and an analysis of annual reports of a matched sample of American and Dutch publicly listed companies.