CRE šalių įmonių finansinių ataskaitų palyginamumo tyrimas ; An assessment of comparability of companies’ financial statements across CEE countries

In practice, comparability is accomplished when financial information may be usefully compared among companies and over the time. However, comparability as such is not a common object of scientific research. Analysis of comparability is often matched with assessment of accounting harmonization in most of the previous research. Moreover, comparability is viewed as an inevitable outcome and/or measure of the accounting harmonization. This research differs from previous research in a way that it analyses comparability in relatively stable period of accounting harmonization of chosen countries. It is also aimed to assess if and to what extent users of financial information shall be able to compare companies’ financial information across CEE countries. To conduct a research a total of 56 companies from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Czech Republic, Croatia and Hungary have been chosed and their financial reports for years 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013 have been analyzed in terms of technical and content comparability. To assess the technical comparability such criteria as reporting currency, reporting language, financial year, level of rounding and applied accounting standards have been examined. Content comparability has been conducted by analyzing variations in names as well as choice of alternatives to present information in balance sheet, profit and loss statement and cash flow statement. The results of research revealed that eventhough de jure accounting harmonization is fully in compliance in Central and Eastern Europe countries, de facto harmonization is not. There are many differencies in the way financial statements are presented.[.]