For other private companies, IFRS adoption may be part of private firms’ signaling strategy.
According to Francis et al. (2008), ‘‘accounting is likely to play a more important role
for private firms (compared with large established corporations) in addressing market
imperfections in the form of agency conflicts and information asymmetry’’ (p. 333). A
financial statement contains the only public available accounting data for some private
companies’ stakeholders like customers, suppliers, employees, and government (Van
Tendeloo & Vanstraelen, 2008). Also banks, that are usually the major source of finance
for private companies, consider financial statement data for their decisions. The use of
IFRS, a set of accounting standards reputed to be of better quality than national ones
(Barth et al., 2008), could imply a ‘‘reputational effect’’ for the voluntary adopter and a
wider possibility to contract with outside parties.