Doctoral research [1983, Vol. 10, no.1]

              The Accounting Historians Journal Vol. 10, No. 1 Spring 1983
DOCTORAL RESEARCH
Maureen H. Berry, Editor
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
It is generally acknowledged that the accounting function exists to serve information needs within a particular cultural environment and that it must, therefore, reflect related social, economic, politi-cal, and legal influences. Further, that as a consequence, these in-fluences, if identifiable, go a long way towards explaining interna-tional differences in accounting thought and practice.
This notion of cultural conditioning seems to have found more recognition by internationally-oriented accounting historians, how-ever, than acceptance by those recommending accounting systems design features for countries which need innovational or adapta-tional changes. The case of developing countries provides a good illustration. Many nations which became independent after World War II inherited exogenously-imposed accounting systems which had claims to cultural relevance because the governors rather than the governed were the dominant clients. After independence, how-ever, prospects for indigenously-selected and culturally-differenti-ated accounting systems dimmed for those host countries which accepted significant foreign investment projects as a strategy for economic growth. The information needs of the investee, usually from a different culture, had to affect the design of accounting sys-tems for the investment projects and the accounting training pro-grams for the local staff. These activities can have a swamping effect on indigenous efforts, depending on the economic importance of the investee. Integrated systems could offer a compromise but the literature on hybrid system design for culturally-differentiated clients, although highly relevant, is unfortunately sparse. It would certainly be important to have this type of perspective in China, for example, where private enterprise accounting technology is cur-rently being imported despite institutional incongruencies. Part of the problem can be traced to the fact that cross-cultural accounting research is a relatively recent phenomenon. Also, there are remark-ably few empirical studies of the impact of cultural variables on the