کنترل های موثر تجربی برای تحقیق در حسابداری بین المللی: افکار بیشتر

This paper responds to recent research by Ruland et al. [Ruland, W., Shon, J., Zhou, P., 2007. Effective controls for research in international accounting. Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, 26(1), 96–116.] that addresses the effectiveness of experimental controls for research in international accounting, with focus on Ndubizu and Sanchez [Ndubizu, G.A., Sanchez, M.H., 2006. The valuation properties of earnings and book value prepared under US GAAP in Chile and IAS in Peru. Journal of Accounting and Public Policy 25 (2)]. We attempt to remove some misconceptions about effective experimental controls that have surfaced in the debate. We argue that theory and refined proxies alleviate many of the control issues that have surfaced in the literature.

We thank Ruland et al. (2007) for taking time to provide valuable and constructive perspectives on experimental control issues in international accounting research in general and on Ndubizu and Sanchez (2006). Ruland et al. (2007) have added additional insights on experimental designs and controls in international accounting research that we hope will not be overlooked in future studies. We, however, believe that some of their comments suggest an insufficient rumination over international accounting literature and misconceptions about the underlying research environments. While they agree that Ndubizu and Sanchez (2006) address timely and important global accounting policy issues, Ruland et al. (2007) raise several control issues in international accounting research, which are discussed in this paper.

International accounting research faces additional research control hurdles beyond the challenges posed by within-country studies, including non-availability of data. The ability to overcome these major challenges is essential for the development of international accounting research. Trade-offs between research control hurdles and data availability are inevitable. The major breakthroughs are likely to come from an effective trade-off of research controls and data limitation. Such a breakthrough will be difficult to achieve without important foundations that stress the linkage between theory and effective controls. We thank Ruland et al. (2007) for their thought provoking commentary, and we have attempted to shed light on some of the points raised. Our conclusion is that some of the control issues raised are important and should not be overlooked. However, we suggest that theory-based predictions and refined proxies are critical in implementing effective controls over omitted research conditions.