The Relevance and Observance of the IASC Standards in Developing Countries and the Particular Case of Zimbabwe

An important outgrowth of the International Accounting Standards Committee's (IASC) international accounting harmonization program is the adoption of its standards by a considerable and increasing number of accounting professional bodies in developing countries. This has taken place against the backdrop of academic arguments suggesting that the IASC standards are irrelevant and/or even harmful to these countries. This contradiction and the question of the relevance of the IASC standards to developing countries are evaluated and explored further (in this article), using Zimbabwe as a case study. The article also examines de facto compliance with the IASC standards by a sample of listed Zimbabwe companies. The results of both the compliance level and the impact of the IASC standards on the reporting practices of listed Zimbabwe companies (a) appear to be significant; and (b) seem to buttress the conclusion that the IASC standards are relevant to Zimbabwe and similar capitalistic developing countries where the “shareholder/fair view” is paramount. These results suggest important implications for the IASC's standardization program.