Cultural influences on indigenous users' perceptions of the importance of disclosure items: empirical evidence from Papua New Guinea

This study investigates the cultural determinism hypothesis that financial statement users from different cultural groups will have different perceptions regarding the importance of accounting information disclosure. Examination of the perceptual differences of three cultural groups from: (1) Papua New Guinea, (2) other developing countries, and (3) developed western countries, shows that while significant differences exist in accounting information perception between financial statement users from the developed western countries and developing countries (including Papua New Guinea), there appears to be no significant difference in the perceptions of users in the developing countries. In general, the results support the cultural determinism thesis in accounting. This has implications for the designing of appropriate accounting and reporting systems for use in the developing countries. It also raises questions about some of the country classifications traditionally reported in the international accounting literature. An important implication is the warning it sends to the International Accounting Standards Board and any other aspiring global standard setters about their penchant for selling Anglo-American standards, packaged as ‘international’ or ‘global’ standards, to the developing countries