Relação entre a comparabilidade das demonstrações contábeis e o ambiente externo: uma análise dos fatores macroambientais

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate whether the external environment is a determining factor for the level of accounting comparability of companies. It is argued that the country’s macro environmental factors determine the variation in companies’ accounting comparability level. The evaluation of the proposed theoretical relation was carried out through the macroenvironmental constructs categorized into six variables: political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal (PESTEL) and the accounting comparability model proposed by De Franco et al. (2011). For both variables, artificial intelligence was used to generate codes to optimize calculations in software. A total of 27,480 observations belonging to 12 G20 countries from 2018 to 2021 were analyzed. Univariate and bivariate descriptive statistics techniques and multilevel modeling HLM3 were used for inferential analyses. The results in both the models grouped by sector and by country show that the joint factor PESTEL and, individually, the political, economic, and social elements of the macro environment positively influence the level of comparability of the companies in the sample. Therefore, the hypothesis regarding the association between the country’s PESTEL and the level of accounting comparability was not rejected. This suggests that a more favorable business environment, political stability, good economic performance, and better social conditions influence companies’ accounting comparability level. Thus, the results corroborate the assumption of previous studies that the external environment or macro environment influences the level of accounting comparability and the investor’s response to this information. This research, in addition to contributing to strengthening the theoretical framework that investigates the determinants of the level of accounting comparability, advances the literature by i) investigating the effect on the level of accounting comparability of the macro environment using the joint factor PESTEL; ii) investigating the factors, according to the literature, called external or macro-environmental determinants of the level of accounting comparability. With the help of artificial intelligence, it provides a methodological contribution by creating codes that optimize the calculation of accounting comparability proposed by De Franco et al. (2011) and the calculation of the PESTEL variable, a measure frequently used and calculated manually in spreadsheets. In practice, this research provides contributions to investors, investment analysts, supervisors and standard setters. Investors and analysts need to consider the macro environment of countries when analyzing and interpreting reported accounting figures since the environmental context of countries is a determining factor in the quality of the accounting statements disclosed by companies. For supervisors, clarification about the macroenvironmental determinants that influence the quality of financial statements can be used in inspections to guide ongoing macroenvironmental events that affect these attributes. For standard setters, it is necessary to become aware of the macroenvironmental factors that influence the accounting comparability attribute, which can guide not only the issuing of accounting standards but also the need to review and implement enforcement mechanisms according to the environmental context of each nation.