The purpose of this paper is to verify the influence of the legal environment (Common Law and Code Law) on the comments of the stakeholders involved in the financial reporting process related to the accounting standards for Small and Medium-sized Entities (SMEs). By answering this question, we intend to verify if there is any evidence of a convergence de facto rather than only a convergence de jure with this regulation. The choice of IFRS for SME further underscores the relevance of the results, because it will affect the accounting practices of a significantly larger number of enterprises in countries that are adopting international standards than just large corporations. The comments were collected from answers to four questions the IASB used in its Discussion Paper for the SMEs standard. The Respondents were classified according to the legal system of their countries and according to the professional entity they were representing. The research findings indicate that there are no significant differences between the responses to questions the IASB raised on the basis of the legal system and no significant differences in responses according to different categories of respondents. The resulting indication from the research is that, even in countries with different legal systems, the views of the stakeholders in financial reporting and accounting processes are aligned, which may be an indication that a convergence de facto and not only a convergence de jure can be achieved through the introduction of international standards for SMEs.
Convergence; IFRS; Small and medium-sized entities
