Third, given our unique data set, we are able to examine (1) institutional factors specific to
private firms’ single accounts, such as regulatory forces (e.g. legal origin, influence of taxation),
(2) determinants which have been explored in prior studies at country level (e.g. governance
quality, social legitimisation pressures), and, in additional analyses, (3) determinants from relatively
new information sources such as the Global Competitiveness Report by the World Economic
Forum (WEF) (e.g. alternative proxies for a country’s governance quality such as the
overall quality of auditing and reporting standards or the ease of access to loans). These new
sources of information have not been used much in accounting literature. We believe that some
of our proxies will prove to be useful for future studies which examine IFRS adoption at
macro level and firm level. For instance, using these new information sources, future studies could empirically investigate the differential effect of IFRS adoption on a country’s ability to
attract loans.