An Empirical investigation of the influence of translation and context on accounting judgments

International convergence of accounting standards has resulted in researchers' greater interests in international accounting research, which often involves the translation from one language into other languages. A number of studies have been conducted to examine the cross-cultural and cross-national similarities and differences in accountants’ judgments on 'uncertainty expressions'. National culture has been a dominant variable in explaining differences in accountants' judgments in a significant number of cross-cultural and cross-national studies published in leading journals, such as Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS). However, it has been argued that the employment of the culture concept has been an excuse for intellectual laziness (Patel, 2004). The differences in subjects' judgments may not be fully attributable to differences in national culture. One of the possible reasons for crosscultural and cross-national differences in judgments may attribute to language and translation. To address this gap in literature, a within-subject experiment was conducted among final year undergraduate accounting students from three Chinese universities. The objectives of this study are to examine the influence of translation and economic context, namely financial performance of corporations, on subjects' judgments on the concept of control, which is the essential criterion in preparing consolidated financial reports.