The Influence of context and personality on judgments of university accounting students relating to consolidated financial reporting

Purpose: This paper examines International Accounting Standard 27 (IAS 27) ‘Consolidated and Separate Financial Statements’, which contained one of the most important and controversial issue. The essential consolidation criterion, namely, one entity’s ‘control’ over another entity is consistently defined as “the power to govern the financial and operating policies of an entity so as to obtain benefits from its activities”. The objective of this study is to empirically examine the influence of contextual factor relating to financial performance of associated entity and personality variable on the basis of regulatory focus theory on judgments of accounting students in an Australian university relating to the consolidation criterion. This research question has been addressed by a 2 x 2 between-subject quasi-experimental research instrument. This study provides empirical evidence that context and personality are important in influencing judgments of accounting students in interpreting and applying the consolidation criterion contained in IFRS. Practical and Social implications: This study has significant implications for the ongoing international accounting convergence with particular reference to enhancing the comparability of consolidated financial reporting across countries. The results also have implications for improving learning and teaching of accounting to university students.