Research On The Firm Accounting Policy Choice From The Perspective Of Stakeholders’ Collective Choices

The research on accounting policy choice has been one of the important fields inaccounting researches. Although research on accounting policy choice is not a newtopic, but the study from the perspective of stakeholders has some theoretical valueand practical significance, especially in the reality that companies are increasinglyconcerned about the interests of stakeholders, and in the theoretical background thatstakeholders accounting theory is proposed and developed.After conducting the systematic review of the domestic and foreign researchliteratures on the accounting policy choices, it is found that the entire research fieldattaches importance to empirical research and underrates normative research.Empirical research method greatly enriches the research area of corporate accountingpolicy choices, but it also faces the problem that itself still can not resolve, such as avariety of options and motivations. Most of the researches are lack of a unified theory,and few studies have tried to build a set of theoretical system of enterprise accountingpolicy choices from an integrated perspective. Therefore, this paper tries to build thetheoretical framework of enterprise accounting policy choices based on stakeholdertheory, mainly using normative research method as well as adding case studies andquestionnaire survey.Research on the firm accounting policy choice relies on the development of thefirm theory. The nature of the firm is the result of the stakeholders’ collective choice,and the nature of accounting is the management system that reflects and controls thevalue form of economic activities mainly by means of monetary measurement, andthat protects and coordinates the economic interests of stakeholders. Firm accountingpolicy choice is a converter that can change operating boundary, resources boundaryand subject boundary of the firm into the object boundary, asset boundary and equityboundary of the accounting. Enterprise accounting policy choice is the behavior thatthe behavior subject carries out the activities process to the object. It is dependent onthe aim of accounting policy choice, and it is subjected to the internal motivation andexternal environment of accounting policy choice. Therefore, the theoreticalframework of firm accounting policy choice should at least include the object, subject,external environment, aim, internal motivation and behavior preference.①The object of the enterprise accounting policy choice is the accountingpolicies that are the rules in the field of accounting, including formal accounting rulessuch as accounting standards, and informal accounting rules such as accountingconventions. The relationship between macro accounting policies and microaccounting policies is more suitable for intersection relationship rather than subset relationship. The first choice of the accounting policies has taken place when internalstakeholders achieve the organizational contract through collective choice. Thespecific content of organizational contract indirectly determines the scope in whichthe enterprise must comply with formal accounting rules. On the one hand, the objectscope of enterprise accounting policy choice can not be blindly expanded; on theother hand, it is not confined to the "hard" accounting choice.②Control rights can be further broken down into the ultimate control, operatingcontrol and craft control. The internal stakeholders owe the right of firm accountingpolicy choice deriving from the residual claims and the ultimate control, managersowe the right of firm accounting policy choice deriving from the operating control,and accountants owe the right of firm accounting policy choice deriving from the craftcontrol. In addition to internal stakeholders, managers and accountants, otherstakeholders constitute the external environment of the enterprise accounting policychoice, such as government, creditors, suppliers, customers, non-accountingemployees and auditors.③The aim of enterprise accounting policy choice is the condition or results thatthe subjects expect to achieve, and it can be divided into basic objective and specificobjective. The basic objective is the equity protection, and specific objective is tominimize the externality of enterprise accounting policy choice, which means that thesum of the absolute values of externalities that each category of stakeholders bearsshould be minimized.④As the subject of the enterprise accounting policy choice，the internalstakeholders，managers and accountants produce different behavior preferences onaccounting policy choice in the pursuit of personal interests maximization. Even thereare different behavior preferences among the same type of stakeholders. For example,the internal stakeholders have different behavior preferences when they input differentresources, have different sharing forms of residual income, or owe different ultimatecontrol, as well as the CFO and other executives, such as CEO, have differentbehavior preferences. In addition to the internal motivation to drive certain behaviorpreferences of accounting policy choice, the firm can have the specific preferencesunder the influence of external environment, such as government, reditors, suppliers,customers, non-accounting employees and auditors.After building the theoretical framework of the corporate accounting policychoices from the the perspective of stakeholders, this paper obtains some evidence tosupport some conclusions by means of questionnaire survey.