auditing and reporting standards’ (STRENGTHAaR), and (3) an index assessing the ‘ease of
doing business’ (DOINGBUSINESS). These variables have not been used much in accounting
studies so far.
‘Ease of access to loans’ reflects perceptions of the level of simplicity for obtaining a bank
loan in a country with only a good business plan and no collateral. ‘Strength of auditing and
reporting standards’ shows perceptions of the quality of financial auditing and reporting standards
regarding company financial performance within a country. Data for both variables are obtained
from the Global Competitiveness Report. The indexes range from 1 to 7, with higher scores indicating
better developed finance environments and stronger auditing and reporting standards,
respectively; both variables are the average value during the period from 2008 to 2009.
The ‘ease of doing business index’ (DOINGBUSINESS) ranks economies from 1 to 185, with
smaller numbers indicating better business conditions. For each country, the ranking is calculated
as the simple average of the percentile rankings on each of the 10 topics included in the index on
doing business.8 Data are obtained from the World Bank.9
We expect that ACCESSLOANS as well as STRENGTHAaR are negatively associated with
the dependent variable. IFRS for SMEs offers relatively low incentives to countries where good
financing environments and strong auditing and reporting systems already exist. Further, we
expect that countries with a high index number for the ‘ease of doing business index’ are more
likely to adopt IFRS for SMEs.
Model 5 in Table 7 shows that the coefficient of the variable ACCESSLOANS is negative and
statistically significant at the 5% level, while Model 6 reports that the coefficient of STRENGTHAaR
is negative and statistically significant at the 1% level. As predicted, the coefficient of the
variable DOINGBUSINESS is positive and significant at the 1% level (Model 7 in Table 7).
Taken together, these alternative proxies for governance quality provide consistent and robust evidence
for our predictions that countries with limited financing possibilities, with weak auditing
and financial reporting environments, and weak business conditions are more likely to adopt
IFRS for SMEs. The signs and significance of the coefficients of our main variables are not
altered significantly.
5.4. Alternative explanations – social legitimisation pressures
Empirical evidence to date on possible determinants of countries’ adoption of full IFRS for consolidated
accounts incorporates a broader social perspective in understanding the diffusion of IFRS
around the world. For instance, Judge et al. (2010) argue that IFRS adoption at country level is
driven more by social legitimisation pressures than it is by economic logic. They use DiMaggio
and Powell’s (1983) institutional theory of isomorphism that differentiates between coercive,
mimetic, and normative isomorphism.10 They find that all three forms of isomorphism are predictive
of the degree to which IFRS are adopted. Therefore, we rerun the regressions explaining the likelihood
of IFRS for SMEs adoption with proxies for social legitimisation pressures.
In line with Judge et al. (2010), we use FOREIGNAID as proxy for coercive isomorphism,
FOREIGNDIRECTINVESTMENT (FDI) (average inflows of foreign direct investments,
expressed as a percentage of GDP) as proxy for mimetic isomorphism, and EDUCATIONALLEVEL
as proxy for normative isomorphism. For instance, if we examine coercive isomorphism as
proxied by FOREIGNAID, the coefficients of NATGAAP as well as GOVQUALITY are negative
and statistically significant at the 5% and 1% significance levels, respectively (untabulated
results). Compared to our main analysis in Table 6, the coefficient of the variable LAW is positive,
but less significant (10% level). However, we cannot provide evidence that social legitimisation
pressures are associated with the likelihood of adoption of IFRS for SMEs at country level. The
results for our proxies for social legitimisation pressures are inconclusive and statistically not
significant.