The Performance Reporting Choices In Europe And Usa. A Survey On The "Successful" Convergence Ifrs/Us-Gaap After The Adoption Of Ias 1 Revised

The exigency of reaching a definition of a unified set of accounting principle will not just result in the effective solution of the “Tower of Babel accounting” (Erikson et al., 2009) but also improve comparability of data, and financial and economic communication of stock markets. The recent process of accounting harmonisation made possible by the adoption in 2005 of IAS/IFRS methods represent the beginning of a practice tending to overcome the accounting differences not just at European level but more generally on a worldwide scale for the progressive adoption of a common global accounting language (Mc Gregor 1999; Pozzoli, 2003; Erikson et al., 2009). It emerges a super partes need for a project of convergence between the European discipline IAS/IFRS with the American accounting principles US GAAP, which justifies the progressive harmonisation of these two accounting systems (Tarca, 2005; Callagan, Treacy, 2007). This process of harmonisation would also represent a significant input for the globalisation of financial markets: accounting information could reach a great level of homogenisation to allow the comparison between financial, economic and capital data and the consequent improvement of economic and financial communication (Fisher, 2006; Hussein, 2007). The coexistence of two sets of accounting standards in the U.S. market and the need highlighted by the two standard setters to promote the convergence process are the main reasons behind the empirical research that is the object of this paper. We investigate these questions using the 2008-2009 and 2012 IFRS annual reports of companies based in four European countries: France, Germany, Italy and the UK and the 2009 US-GAAP annual reports of companies based in the US. The main purpose of our research is to evaluate the differences (Bloomer, 1996; Ampofo & Sellani, 2005; PwC, 2012; Kvaal & Nobes, 2010; 2011) on the reporting performance choices between the two accounting standards, respectively IFRS and U.S. GAAP.The main objectives of this research are the following ones: OB1:to analyse the way of reporting of the comprehensive income within the Annual Report of listed European and American companies during the two-year period 2008-2009 and in 2012; OB2: to verify the impact of the requirements issued by the IAS 1 revised referring to the presence of some performance indicators and the improvement of the performance disclosure within the Annual Report. The first goal OB1 requires the following researches to be the developed: 1) the check of the number of Income Statement tables. For the sample of European companies (2009), it is provided a choice between two alternatives, namely a single statement or two separate statements, while on the basis of FAS 130 it is considered a choice among three alternatives i.e. in addition to the ones already highlighted it is possible to expose other comprehensive income in the statement of changes in net assets (Statement of changes in equity); 2) ways for exposing the intermediate results (in particular verification of the presence of the operating result); 3) ways for exposing the income related to the financial area (especially verification of the presence of the balance between financial income and expenses); 4) highlight of the income of an extraordinary nature; 5) criteria for classification of costs, by nature or by function. The second objective OB2 requires the following researches to be the carried out: 1. calculation of ROE in two different ways: ROENI (Net Income) and ROECI (Comprehensive Income); 2. checking for the presence of NON-GAAP measures related to performance in the narrative section of the Annual Report and possible indication of the number and type of indicators calculated; 3. verification of the significance of OCI and the volatility of comprehensive income compared to net income.