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The Impact of Culture on Accounting Choices: Can Cultural Conservatism Explain Accounting Conservatism?

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The Impact of Culture on Accounting Choices: Can Cultural Conservatism Explain Accounting Conservatism? View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University Singapore Management University Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University Research Collection School Of Accountancy School of Accountancy 7-2004 The mpI act of Culture on Accounting Choices: Can Cultural Conservatism Explain Accounting Conservatism? Tony Kang Singapore Management University, [email protected] Lian Fen LEE Singapore Management University Jeffrey NG Singapore Management University, [email protected] Joanne TAY Singapore Management University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soa_research Part of the Accounting Commons, and the Sociology of Culture Commons Citation Kang, Tony; LEE, Lian Fen; NG, Jeffrey; and TAY, Joanne. The mpI act of Culture on Accounting Choices: Can Cultural Conservatism Explain Accounting Conservatism?. (2004). Asia Pacific nI terdisciplinary Research in Accounting Conference 4th APIRA 2004, uJ ly 2-3. Research Collection School Of Accountancy. Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soa_research/275 This Conference Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Accountancy at Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Research Collection School Of Accountancy by an authorized administrator of Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University. For more information, please email [email protected]. THE IMPACT OF CULTURE ON ACCOUNTING CHOICES: CAN CULTURAL CONSERVATISM EXPLAIN ACCOUNTING CONSERVATISM? Tony Kang McGill University Singapore Management University Lee Lian Fen Singapore Management University Jeffrey Ng The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Singapore Management University Joanne Tay Singapore Management University Accepted for Presentation at the Fourth Asia Pacific Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting Conference 4 to 6 July 2004 Singapore THE IMPACT OF CULTURE ON ACCOUNTING CHOICES: CAN CULTURAL CONSERVATISM EXPLAIN ACCOUNTING CONSERVATISM? ABSTRACT We explore the extent to which cultural conservatism explains accounting conservatism. Our primary measure for accounting conservatism is the magnitude of non-operating accruals, which are highly discretionary in nature. Culture permeates values and attitudes, and thus governs many aspects of human behavior. Hence it is likely to affect managers’ accounting choice behaviors. However, there is surprisingly little evidence on the association between the two types of conservatism in the literature. Using a sample of 800 firms originating from 21 countries during the nine-year period from 1993 to 2001, we find strong evidence that the managers in more conservative cultural environments tend to make more conservative accounting choices (e.g., report lower estimates for future cash flows). We also find some empirical support for the idea that culture and legal regime interact as substitutes in explaining accounting conservatism. THE IMPACT OF CULTURE ON ACCOUNTING CHOICES: CAN CULTURAL CONSERVATISM EXPLAIN ACCOUNTING CONSERVATISM? INTRODUCTION Accounting conservatism has frequently been described as the most ancient and probably the most pervasive principle of accounting valuation (Sterling, 1967, p.10). Earlier studies of factors affecting accounting practices identified economic systems, trade ties, whether accounting relates to macroeconomics (national policies) or microeconomics (business economics), whether accounting is viewed as part of business practice or administration and control, and language (as a proxy for culture) (Mueller, 1968; Nair and Frank, 1980; Choi and Mueller, 1984; Nobes, 1983, 1984). Studies have also found that the degree of accounting conservatism across countries can be in part explained by the legal regime of an economy, which influences the demand for accounting information (see for instance, Ball et al. 2000). However, we note that discussions of country-level factors that might influence the level of accounting conservatism are still very limited in the literature. Adler (1997) argues that culture influences values, and Homer and Kahle (1988) document a values-attitudes-behavior hierarchy by demonstrating how the internal and external dimensions of values influence attitudes, which in turn influence behavior. The logical extension of this argument is that culture generally influences behavior in a particular group of people (e.g. in a particular economy). Accounting choices among alternative methods of reporting can be described as discretionary accounting behavior within the accounting subculture of a particular economy. Along these lines, Gray (1988) conjectured that “there should be a close match between culture areas and patterns of accounting practices internationally.” In this study we focus on the particular dimension of cultural conservatism, because of the importance of accounting conservatism to the discipline, as highlighted by Gray (1988): “Conservatism or prudence in asset measurement and the reporting of profits is perceived as a fundamental attitude of accountants the world over.” Despite the potential association between the two, we note that there is little discussion on the role of cultural conservatism on accounting conservatism in the literature. This motivates our investigation. Our evidence suggests that the managers in more conservative cultural environments tend to report lower estimates for future cash flows (e.g., non-operating accruals). This result is robust to previously identified determinants of a firm’s conservative accounting choices such as the legal regime of the firm’s country of domicile and debt-to-equity ratio. Further analysis shows that cultural conservatism plays a relatively more important role in managers’ conservative accounting choices in code law countries, where accounting is generally known to be less conservative, than in common law countries. By documenting these associations, this study contributes to the literature by (1) identifying a country-level determinant of managers’ conservative accounting choices; and (2) documenting how cultural conservatism, as a country- level determinant of accounting conservatism, interacts with a previously documented determinant of accounting conservatism (e.g., the legal regime of a firm’s country of domicile). 1 This study is organized as follows. In the next section, we briefly review prior literature on cultural conservatism and accounting conservatism. In Section III, we describe the background of the issue and develop hypotheses. In Section IV, we describe our sample and research design. In Section V, we discuss our results. We then conclude in Section VI. CULTURAL CONSTRUCTS AND ACCOUNTING CONSERVATISM Cultural Constructs Hofstede and Bond (1988) define culture as “the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one category of people from those of another. Culture is composed of certain values, which shape behavior as well as one’s perception of the world.” Hofstede’s seminal work on culture (1980, 2001) identifies five dimensions of culture, described as “basic problem[s] with which all societies have to cope” (2001, p.29). These are briefly recapped here for completeness: 1. Power distance, scaled low to high: response to human inequality 2. Uncertainty avoidance, scaled low to high: reaction to an unknown future 3. Individualism versus collectivism: the extent of individual integration into primary groups 4. Masculinity versus femininity: the division of emotional roles along gender lines 5. Short-term versus long-term orientation: focus of people’s efforts between the present and the future. Various values, attitudes and norms associated with the poles of each dimension are summarized in Table 1. Conservatism is explicitly identified only as a norm in a culture with high uncertainty avoidance. Other related values and attitudes include conformity (in high power distance cultures); tradition (in low individualist / high collectivist cultures); cooperation (low masculinity / high femininity cultures); respect for tradition and protection of face (short-term orientation cultures). Thus Hofstede’s analysis does not directly discuss conservatism as a construct1, but indicates that the values commonly associated with it may be found in cultures with high power distance and uncertainty avoidance, low individualism and masculinity, and short-term orientation. [Insert Table 1 about here] Schwartz (1994) attempted a different analysis, based on values organized on two basic dimensions: openness to change versus conservation, with the opposing value types of autonomy versus conservatism; and self-transcendence versus self-enhancement, with the opposing value types of egalitarianism and harmony versus hierarchy and mastery. For the purposes of a study 1 The individualism/collectivism dimension has been the most popularly used as the explanatory variable in subsequent research on culture. This dimension may be used as a summary of his study. Simply, cultures may be described as more or less individualist or collectivist. 2 on accounting conservatism, we believe that Schwartz’s dimensions and values are more insightful because: (1) conservatism is defined as one pole of the two basic dimensions; and (2) the relationship between and among the polar values types point to an inherent tension within conservatism. The dimensions, value types and underlying values are summarized
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