IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ysm/wpaper/amz2525.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Norms versus Standards of Accounting

Author

Listed:
  • Shyam Sunder

Abstract

Historically, norms of accounting played an important role in corporate financial reporting. Starting with the federal regulation of securities, accounting norms have been progressively replaced by written standards. While social norms are maintained through an informal process of social as well as international sanctions, standards require more formal enforcement mechanisms, often supported by implicit or explicit power of the state to impose punishment. The spate of accounting and auditing failures of the recent years raise questions about the wisdom of this transition from norms to standards. Many aspects of family, local, professional, social, national and international behaviors continue to be governed by mechanisms in which norms play an important role. It is possible that the pendulum of standardization in acco

Suggested Citation

  • Shyam Sunder, 2005. "Social Norms versus Standards of Accounting," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2525, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Sep 2005.
    • Handle: RePEc:ysm:wpaper:amz2525
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.som.yale.edu/icfpub/publications/2525.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eisenberg, Melvin, 1999. "Corporate Law, Social Norms and Belief Systems," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series qt1dh3j8qj, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics.
    2. Posner, Richard A, 1997. "Social Norms and the Law: An Economic Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 365-369, May.
    3. Karim Jamal & Michael Maier & Shyam Sunder, 2005. "Enforced Standards Versus Evolution by General Acceptance: A Comparative Study of E‐Commerce Privacy Disclosure and Practice in the United States and the United Kingdom," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 73-96, March.
    4. Shyam NMI Sunder & Ronald A. Dye, 2001. "Why Not Allow the FASB and IASB Standards to Compete in the U.S.?," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm192, Yale School of Management.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shyam Sunder, 2005. "Social Norms versus Standards of Accounting," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2525, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Sep 2005.
    2. Shizuki Saito, 2011. "Accounting Standards and Global Convergence Revisited: Social Norms and Economic Concepts," The Japanese Accounting Review, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, vol. 1, pages 105-117, December.
    3. Jamal, Karim & Sunder, Shyam, 2011. "Is mandated independence necessary for audit quality?," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 284-292.
    4. Kothari, S.P. & Ramanna, Karthik & Skinner, Douglas J., 2010. "Implications for GAAP from an analysis of positive research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 246-286, December.
    5. Shyam Sunder & Karim Jamal, 2006. "Regulation, Competition and Independence in a Certification Society: Financial Reports Vs. Baseball Cards," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2578, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Jun 2007.
    6. Alexander Leischnig & Arch G. Woodside, 2019. "Who Approves Fraudulence? Configurational Causes of Consumers’ Unethical Judgments," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 713-726, September.
    7. Karim Jamal & Shyam Sunder, 2014. "Monopoly versus Competition in Setting Accounting Standards," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 50(4), pages 369-385, December.
    8. Matteo Migheli & Giovanni B. Ramello, 2013. "Open Access, Social Norms & Publication Choice," ICER Working Papers 03-2013, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    9. Agarwala, Matthew & Burke, Matt & Klusak, Patrycja & Mohaddes, Kamiar & Volz, Ulrich & Zenghelis, Dimitri, 2021. "Climate Change And Fiscal Sustainability: Risks And Opportunities," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 258, pages 28-46, November.
    10. Craig A. Depken & Peter A. Groothuis & Mark C. Strazicich, 2020. "Evolution Of Community Deterrence: Evidence From The National Hockey League," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(2), pages 289-303, April.
    11. Sebastian Kunte & Meike Wollni & Claudia Keser, 2017. "Making it personal: breach and private ordering in a contract farming experiment," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 44(1), pages 121-148.
    12. Paul H. Jensen & Robin E. Stonecash, 2004. "The Efficiency of Public Sector Outsourcing Contracts: A Literature Review," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2004n29, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    13. Ramcilovic-Suominen, Sabaheta & Hansen, Christian P., 2012. "Why some forest rules are obeyed and others violated by farmers in Ghana: Instrumental and normative perspective of forest law compliance," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 46-54.
    14. Shyam Sunder & Michael Maier & Karim Jamal, 2004. "Enforced Standards Versus Evolution by General Acceptance: A Comparative Study of E-Commerce Privacy Disclosure and Practice in the U.S. and the U.K," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2630, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Nov 2004.
    15. George J. Benston & Michael Bromwich & Alfred Wagenhofer, 2006. "Principles‐ versus rules‐based accounting standards: the FASB's standard setting strategy," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 42(2), pages 165-188, June.
    16. Dong, Bin & Dulleck, Uwe & Torgler, Benno, 2012. "Conditional corruption," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 609-627.
    17. Shyam Sunder, 2003. "Rethinking the Structure of Accounting and Auditing," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm382, Yale School of Management.
    18. Martin Halla, 2011. "The Link between the Intrinsic Motivation to Comply and Compliance Behaviour: A Critical Appraisal of Existing Evidence," Chapters, in: Friedrich Schneider (ed.), Handbook on the Shadow Economy, chapter 11, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Plé, Loïc & Demangeot, Catherine, 2020. "Social contagion of online and offline deviant behaviors and its value outcomes: The case of tourism ecosystems," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 886-896.
    20. Columbus, Simon & Feld, Lars P. & Kasper, Matthias & Rablen, Matthew D., 2023. "Behavioural Responses to Unfair Institutions: Experimental Evidence on Rule Compliance, Norm Polarisation, and Trust," IZA Discussion Papers 16346, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ysm:wpaper:amz2525. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/smyalus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.