Ser inte skogen för alla träd : En studie om skogsbolags regelefterlevnad

Background: 1990 the work begun to create a common framework for forestry and agriculture. 2001 the work resulted in IAS 41 made by IASB. The major change from going from national rules to IAS 41 was that assets and liabilities needed to be calculated to fair value instead of historical cost. The rules to compute fair value is complicated and therefore 2010 IASB released IFRS 13 to harmonize the how companies computed fair value. It is through the company’s annual report that they show compliance with IAS 41 and IFRS 13.By doing a comparative study of several countries that report according to IFRS, the purpose of the study is to extend the field of research for forestry companies that reports according to IAS 41 and the new standard IFRS 13. To answer the purpose, we examine if there are any differences in compliance between forestry companies in different countries and what any differences can be caused by. We designed two questions to answer the goal of this study. How are the compliance with the disclosure requirements in IAS 41 and IFRS 13. Have company-specific factors any correlation with compliance. Theory: There are a multitude of possibly explanations on why a company choose to comply or not comply with disclosure requirements. This study examines the intensity of supervisory body. A measurement made designed by Jackson and Roe (2009). Jackson and Roe (2009) argue that with a higher budget and a greater amount of staff the organization can investigate more accusations, prevent and punish non-compliance. In theory an authority that is more active will provided higher quality of the financial reports. Carvajaland Elliot (2009) also argue that non-compliance is an important issue because the credibility of financial markets relies on effective discipline and real consequences on non-compliance. If a supervisory body is passive and non-compliance does not lead to any consequences it can erode the credibility in financial markets. Method: The study is a comparative investigation on compliance of IAS 41 and IFRS 13. The study selection are 17 forestry companies from four different nations. We have developed two interpretations guides to help us determine if a company comply with IAS 41 and IFRS 13. This data is then computed to a disclosure index there every fulfilled disclosure is divided by all possibly disclosures. Then we tested if there were a difference in mean compliance between the four nations with an Anova-test. Lastly we tested if there were a correlation between our hypothesis and compliance with a t-test. Results: The study could not find a statistical significant difference between compliance and the four nations nor could we find a correlation between our hypothesis and compliance