In 1990 a new Spanish 'Plan General de Contabilidad' (PGC) implemented the requirements of the EU 4th and 7th Directives in Spain. Included in the PGC is the requirement, derived from the 4th Directive, that accounts should present a 'true and fair view', in Spanish 'imagen fiel'. Where the term...

The term 'creative accounting' can be defined in a number of ways. Initially we will offer this definition: 'a process whereby accountants use their knowledge of accounting rules to manipulate the figures reported in the accounts of a business'. To investigate the ethical issues raised by...

Comparative national management accounting is the least developed aspect in the field of international accounting. Only during the second half of the 1990's some comparisons of national management accounting practice have appeared published but only at the regional level. In this paper a range...

Gray (1988) has put forward a hypothesis on how a national accounting environment might reflect the cultural dimensions identified by Hofstede (1980, 1983). A number of studies have tested Gray's hypothesis, including one by Pourjalali and Meek (1995) which identified a match between changes in...

Despite attempts to secure harmonisation of accounting practice, significant variations in accounting rules and practice continue to arise in European countries, variations which give rise to compliance costs for multinational companies. Firstly, this paper considers the relevance of...

Creative accounting is a growing issue of interest in Spain. In this article we argue that the concept true and fair view can limit or promote the use of creative accounting depending upon its interpretation. We review the range of meanings that true and fair view can take at an international...

In Spain both accounting practice and accounting research have been strongly influenced by accounting practices developed in the English speaking world. This paper: 1) Summarizes a seminal English paper, the 'Corporate Report', that identified the potential for accounting reports to serve a wide...