Changing from German GAAP to IFRS or US GAAP: Objectives and achievements - An empirical survey of German companies -

Since 1993, an increasing number of listed German companies have been publishing their consolidated financial statements in accordance with either IFRS or US-GAAP. From 1998 on, this has been approved as a substitute for the consolidated German-GAAP financial statements of listed companies (§ 292a HGB). With regard to this development, our study surveys the objectives that led these companies to choose international reporting systems (IFRS or US-GAAP) rather than German-GAAP as well as whether these objectives have been achieved. Rather surprisingly, we find that even though companies state that their overall expectations have been met to a satisfactory degree...