The Impact of the Cultural Dimensions on Accounting Practice in Brazil: a perspective based on the Accounting Operators’ Perception

Abstract

The objective of this study was to verify to what extent the cultural dimensions impact the accounting practice in Brazil. To do so, with regard to the cultural dimensions, we used the adapted questionnaire Valued Survey Model 08 (VSM 08), which Hofstede constructed in 2008, and its Portuguese version. In order to capture accounting practices, we applied the questionnaire structured with direct questions to accounting operators, originally used by Chanchani and Willett (2004) and replicated by Almeida and Lisboa (2011) and Karabinar, Canel and Öktem (2012). The final sample consisted of 449 respondents from all over Brazil, divided into the following groups of operators: accounting users, accounting teachers, accounting professionals and accounting students. Considering that there is a diversified number of variables to capture cultural dimensions and accounting practices, we used Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). The factors were extracted through Principal Component Analysis and Varimax extraction. After the factor analysis, a multiple regression was performed with the extracted factors, in which the dependent variable corresponded to the accounting practices, and the independent variables were the cultural dimensions. The results indicate that the accounting operators are mainly conservative and the cultural dimensions that most impact the accounting practice are aversion to uncertainty and distance from power. It was concluded that it is not possible to infer that, at first, the adoption of international accounting standards leads to an improvement in the accounting process, since the countries where these standards were originally conceived (common law tradition) have a low aversion to uncertainty and distance from power, something contrary to the findings in this research.