International accounting standardisation : participants, legitimacy and issues at stake

[eng] Accounting standards provide tools making it possible to evaluate the financial position of firms. However, if one wishes to ensure respect for the interests of the various interested parties in the life of a company, it is necessary that the image obtained be true to reality. Hence, the importance of perceiving the content of these standards and of gaining mastery over their determination. If one wishes to understand current developments in accounting standards, one need only show who the players are and bring up questions as to the legitimacy of the standards that have been produced. While the process of standardisation in accounting is characterised, among other things, by an increase in the number of organisations, this does not hinder the harmonisation of standards. The entire stake thus lies in adopting or in not adopting all standards thus defined, by the States. . JEL classifications : K2, M41