Normative motives or moral stimuli : conforming to accounting regulation in the UK

Abstract

The most prominent roles of accounting rules lie in their significance in promoting the transparency of financial reports and establishing confidence in the profession. However their effectiveness depends largely on the degree to which companies cooperate with reporting requirements. This paper sets out to investigate the nature of cooperation with accounting rules and explore the motives behind cooperation in the UK context by addressing issues related to the role of normative and moral factors in the cooperative decision. Factors deriving from the literature review on theories of conformity and accounting regulation are used in semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that cooperation with accounting regulation is more induced by normative influences than moral and ethical stimuli and that the potential motivations for non-cooperation are far more likely to form the basis of a strategic decision rather than a string of operational policy decisions. This result is believed to have a significant effect on the development of sound accounting regulatory frameworks and the nature of efficient enforcement systems.