2. Theoretical framework
Influential scholars have demonstrated that financial accounting and auditing are the outcomes of the
dissemination of certain norms and practices through a global system which has developed over the
last two centuries and significantly intensified in the latter half of the 20th century, as a result
of the increased globalization of business (Arnold, 2009, 2012; Power, 2009). Underlying this
process is argued to be the expansion of a universalistic commercial culture which has also been at
work for the last two centuries. Power (2009) suggests that key accounting concepts such as income,
expenses, assets and liabilities circulated and became more highly-rationalized at a transactional
level before they were ever an object of explicit national interest:
These key features give financial accounting statements in different jurisdictions their ‘family
resemblance’ and may even be one of the major global accomplishments of the modern period grounded
on centuries of diffusion, adaptation,