Financial Accounting and Reporting: a Global Perspective

With the increasing use of IFRS (international financial reporting standards) the use of local accounting standards is tending to desuetude in teaching. Financial accounting and reporting courses today need to recognize both the diversity of national traditions and the trend towards accounting harmonization. Additionally, the profile of students taking reporting courses on European and international business programs is changing. Student bodies are now more heterogeneous with regard to nationalities and cultures. English has become the lingua franca of business for most MBA and many undergraduate students. More and more business programs are taught in part or completely in international English. Students today need to be trained to appreciate, to understand and to analyze a variety of accounting and reporting problems from a theoretical and generic point of view, rather than just memorize the local regulatory solution prescribed in any given country or context. This book provides an introduction to financial accounting for today's international business student. It provides a user perspective. Knowledge of the principles of financial accounting and reporting is a sine qua non for all students intending to become economic actors. Whether they will use accounting and financial information as internal managers or executives, or as external users (investors, credit analysts, etc.) they will need to interpret accounting data. Rather than providing a regulatory solution to a reporting or measurement issue, "Financial Accounting and Reporting" examines the economic logic of the problem and identifies generic possible solutions and shows the impact each might have on a company's or decision maker's decisions.