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The purpose of this paper is to investigate in-depth and explain the issues related to the experience of Tunisia, a developing country, in its attempt to move from Euro-Continental rule-based generally accepted accounting principles (GAAPs) to an accounting system adapted to international financial reporting standards (IFRS).

The study is conducted via a qualitative methodology based on a content analysis of primary data from interviews with key actors involved in financial reporting in Tunisia.

Findings reveal that local Tunisian GAAPs, adapted to IFRS in their 1996 version, failed to establish a financial reporting accounting culture and meet public-interest firms’ informational needs. This is mainly related to factors, such as the simplified methods adopted (generally adequate to the identified needs of users of small and medium-sized entity financial statements) and the hybrid aspect of the Tunisian accounting standards due to the co-existence of Euro-Continental and Anglo-Saxon parties. Moreover, the findings show that the lack of political willpower and the absence of updates to changes in IFRS have compromised the proper functioning of standardization and control structures.

The study’s results may interest regulators and policymakers of many developing countries that have not pursued the harmonization of their local GAAPs with IFRS. In addition, findings from the research provide insights into the rough road towards harmonization, the dysfunctions of the latter and delays in developing countries.

The research highlights the complexity for an emerging country with Euro-Continental accounting traditions to move to IFRS.

De facto use of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is a particular form of voluntary compliance with International Accounting Standards (IAS). It is practiced when an enterprise uses a number (and not all) of international standards as a complement to overcome the unachieved nature of local generally accepted accounting principles. The purpose of this paper is to analyze, at first, whether the financial expertise of Tunisian audit committee’s members is associated with de facto use of IFRS. Second, it explores to what extent and in what direction this association evolves when the factor auditor’s size is introduced as a moderator variable.

Data spanning a seven-year period (2012–2018) was hand-collected for a sample of 497 firm-year observations. Further, regression analysis was used to test the study’s hypothesis.

Findings show that the proportion of financial experts who sit on the audit committee is positively associated with the de facto use of IFRS. Besides, the association between audit committee members’ financial expertise and the voluntary use of IFRS is more pronounced when the company is audited by at least one BIG 4 audit firm.

The paper’s findings have implications for regulatory bodies and standards setters who are concerned with the functioning of the audit committee, especially when it comes to enhancing the quality of the financial statements. The results also shed light on the role of financial experts on the audit committee and Big 4 auditors to enforce the de facto use of IFRS.

The findings of this study contain an important message for the drift toward national de jure convergence with IAS.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether chief audit executive (CAE) gender has a significant impact on the internal audit function (IAF) effectiveness as proxied by the extent to which the internal audit function uses quality assurance techniques.

This study uses a multivariate regression model to analyze the association between CAE gender and the use of quality assurance techniques in fieldwork as a proxy for IAF effectiveness. Data were collected using a survey of 74 internal auditors from Tunisian listed companies.

The results indicate that IAFs run by a female CAE are more likely to incorporate quality assurance techniques into fieldwork than IAFs run by male CAEs. Therefore, internal audit departments managed by women tend to be more effective.

Findings highlight to regulators and reform advocates the importance of having women on the CAE position will improve internal audit practices’ quality. Thus, the gender difference in internal auditing should be more strongly emphasized in different cultural and economic contexts.

This study provides new insights which add to the existing gender literature by introducing a North African perspective and simultaneously providing new insights that highlight the importance of having women on top management positions in internal auditing and the positive effects which come with it.

This paper aims to examine the business communication skills that accounting students see as having the highest importance for career success. It also explores the current levels of development of these skills and analyzes them through a comparative study between three Tunisian business schools.

The authors used a questionnaire sent to180 students from three business schools to provide insights into the development of communication skills perceived important for a successful accounting career.

The results indicate that all students are conscious of the importance held by communication skills for career success in the accounting profession. However, they feel that their aptitudes are sometimes poorly developed, especially when it comes to proficiency in French (as a language of business in Tunisia) and written skills.

The paper’s findings offer important guidance concerning the communication skills that accounting students consider most needed by the Tunisian labor market. The findings of this study may be useful for curriculum development in local and international contexts.

This study is conducted in a developing country where the graduate unemployment rate is about 30 per cent. This high unemployment often affects service professions like accounting. Moreover, in Tunisia, accounting education focuses particularly on technical aspects. So far, no studies have been conducted to show whether students nowadays are aware of the increasing importance of generic skills in accounting practice. As a result, the conclusions of this study could provide Tunisian stakeholders with insights into ways of potentially improving accounting graduates’ employability.

This study aims to analyze whether chief executive officer (CEO) duality and financial expertise are associated with earnings management to exceed thresholds. It also investigates to what extent and in what direction this association evolves when family ownership is introduced as a moderator variable.

Based on balanced panel data related to companies listed on the Tunis Stock Exchange, this study uses the logistic random-effect model to test research hypotheses during the period spanning from 2016 to 2021.

The results show that CEOs with financial expertise are less inclined to engage in earnings management to avoid reporting losses and earnings decline. The authors also provide evidence that CEO duality allows top management to be more powerful and, therefore, manage earnings to report positive profits and sustain recent performance. Furthermore, the authors find that family ownership moderates the association between CEO financial expertise, CEO duality and earnings management to exceed thresholds.

The findings suggest to regulators involved in corporate governance and earnings management issues a reflection on CEO duality power, board effectiveness and family control. The study results are also of interest to auditors and board members as they provide a more in-depth understanding of the impact of CEOs' attributes and family control on financial reporting decisions.

This study extends past literature by providing new insights into the effect of CEO attributes and family control on earnings management practices in weak investor protection countries such as Tunisia.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) power and the level of tax avoidance of Tunisian listed companies. It also examines the moderating role of institutional ownership in this association.

The sample comprises 306 firm-year observations of companies listed on the Tunis Stock Exchange during the 2013–2020 period.

The results indicate that CEO power reduces tax avoidance levels. Moreover, the relationship between CEO power and tax avoidance is more pronounced in the presence of institutional ownership, suggesting that CEOs act less opportunistically when monitored by institutional investors, which results in a reduction in tax avoidance.

This study suggests that CEO power and institutional shareholders’ influence are important factors in determining firms’ avoidance behavior. This study has significant implications for shareholders and regulatory bodies. Indeed, shareholders apprehend the impact of appointing a powerful CEO on tax avoidance practices. This study may also provide regulators with new insights into the influence of CEO power dimensions and institutional ownership on tax aggressiveness.

This study fills the gap in the accounting literature by investigating how CEO power may impact tax avoidance behavior and provides empirical evidence on the moderating impact of institutional ownership on this relationship in an emerging economy context characterized by a weakly protected investor setting.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss accounting development in Tunisia, which is a developing North African country little known in the international accounting literature.

Methodologically, this paper is based on an exploratory approach. It uses the descriptive tradition of research by collecting and analyzing numerical and narrative data to identify and describe environmental factors that favor or hamper accounting development in Tunisia.

This paper indicates that Tunisian companies have been applying the Enterprise Accounting System (EAS) since 1996. This system, while keeping with the logic of a chart of accounts, represents a first attempt to harmonize with international accounting standards. Accounting harmonization in Tunisia is meant to support the strategy, launched in the early 1990s, to integrate the country into the globalization process. Accordingly, the EAS has helped to achieve macroeconomic benefits (public interests). However, it does not lead to the desired level of financial transparency (private interests), especially that of large companies. Currently, Tunisian Accounting Standards neither reflect the rapid evolution of business activity nor changes in international accounting standards. This unachieved harmonization has led some listed companies to comply with some International Financial Reporting Standards which are not included in the EAS.

The unachieved harmonization in Tunisia is mainly related to the political system, taxation factors, the legal system, the weak state of corporate governance and governmental control over standardization.

This paper provides insights into the problems of developing countries that harmonize with international standards to achieve public interests. These countries may encounter many difficulties in bringing their accounting standards up to date. These difficulties seem to be associated with environmental specificities. Accordingly, international standardization bodies and developing country regulators should take into account environmental factors which are determinant for the harmonization decision to succeed.

This paper contributes to the existing literature on accounting development in developing countries. It implies that recent accounting development, as it is designed in Tunisia, is better suited to the needs of small businesses. Large companies would be compelled to complement local generally accepted accounting principles by standards they choose, voluntarily, among international standards.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the perception held by attendees about the role and the effectiveness of their audit committees.

The investigation was conducted via a qualitative methodology through the content analysis of interviews conducted with 33 attendees of audit committee meetings of Tunisian listed companies.

The findings reveal that audit committees do not have the means to achieve the objectives that they have been given by the legal texts, which are likely to characterize their work as “ceremonial” or “symbolic.” This paper also found that the most significant effects of the audit committee chair’s role come through informal meetings and conversations.

The paper’s findings have policy implications for regulators. Findings from this research may allow regulators to assess whether the audit committee activities in Tunisian companies meet their expectations.

This paper tries to fill a gap in the extant literature and provides meaningful information on activities performed by audit committees and the extent to which they are perceived effective in the eyes of attendees of audit-committee meetings. This study is one of the few field investigations that have analyzed audit committees’ effectiveness in emerging markets through interviews with attendees involved in audit-committee processes.

In recent years, Tunisian listed companies have been preparing their financial statements under a hybrid set of accounting standards; a mixture of national and international standards. The purpose of this paper is to empirically verify to what extent this particular form of de facto compliance with IAS/IFRS (which are not authorized in Tunisia) is used among listed companies. The paper further analyzes accounting professionals’ perception of the current state of Tunisian standards and their attitudes in the absence of relevant national Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAPs).

Two methodological approaches were used to answer the paper’s research questions: a document analysis approach and a survey questionnaire.

The document analysis revealed that a growing number of listed companies complement local GAAPs by standards they select among IAS/IFRS. The perception study indicated that Tunisian Accounting Standards are, indeed, less suitable for listed companies’ needs. Accordingly, when there is no local standard to measure a specific transaction or event, accounting professionals seem to have no problem in using some IAS/IFRS as a complement to overcome the unachieved nature of local GAAPs. However, the overall findings are likely to suggest that international standards used must not conflict with the Tunisian conceptual framework’s provisions. This means that the use of IAS/IFRS in conjunction with local GAAPs is generally perceived as being beneficial to the quality of financial statements.

This study may be of interest to many developing countries that have not continued the harmonization of their accounting standards with IAS/IFRS. Future research should focus on the reasons which have led to this unachieved harmonization and the consequences of the normative gap which might emerge.

Previous research has often shown how difficult it is to apply international accounting standards in developing countries, especially when they do not correspond to the companies’ needs. Difficulties could occur when local standard-setters do not accurately know which new international standards are suitable to the market needs. The study gives some insights suggesting that corporate accounting practices should be analyzed to understand the real needs for new standards.

The paper highlights the beginning of a de facto convergence with international accounting standards without any support of national de jure convergence. Consideration of this phenomenon may contribute to the understanding of the malaise that characterizes the current accounting standard-setting in developing countries.