Contenu du sommaire : La comptabilité dans tous ses états

Accounting and politics ; complex and reciprocal links The presidential and legislative elections in 2012 were an opportunity for the authors to examine the relationship between accounting and politics. The article sets out a groundwork for a reflection on this theme. It emphasizes the strong links between politics and accounting. If politics influence accounting, the reverse is also true.

Mergers in public organisations : The case of Pôle Emploi, France's national employment agency Faced with the obligation to transform public services due to organic lawsrelated to finance acts, whith a performance and results logic, and, on the other hand, certain European directives forcing member states to reduce deficits, leaders of public organizations are looking for the best current organizational methods enabling public organizations to improve their performance and efficiency. In this light, mergers represent a solution for public organizations today. Although these merges are still criticized as being a tool only used by the corporations, our research highlights the need for them in public organizations. To carry out this study, we focused our work on the role and consequences of mergers. Our empirical study conducted in a French national employment agency shows that mergers in public organizations can be institutionalized and adopted on a larger scale. The results here confirm that mergers can represent an effective and dynamic tool in public organizations.

Management control in the evaluation of public policy : The case of management culture in a town hall We wished to turn to good account our participation in the implementation of ABC approach within a French town hall to propose in this paper the method ABC/ABM as a key for analysing adapted at the same time to a controlling approach and assessment of public policies. The deployment of the ABC/ABM within the cultural management that activities are specific allows to reveal both approaches and to crystallize, through the measure, the various visions of the culture.

Belgian public accounting : towards accrual accounting Belgian public accounting is continuously evolving. Originally, only cash basis budgetary accounting existed, but the will to evolve towards an accounting system allowing the follow-up of the public patrimony and debt and to ensure a better transparency of accounts appeared. So, after several changes in budgetary and accounting practices, the legislative authorities introduced an accrual basis accounting system and double-entry general accounting. The reform of 2003 is the main element of this accounting modernization, inspired by the New Public Management. This paper first describes the development of Belgian public accounting since 1846. The next section is devoted to the 2003 accounting reform, and more specifically its content and triggering factors. The level of implementation of this reform in the different Belgian public entities is then studied.

Legal Risks and their Mapping : proposals for a methodology The mapping of legal risks is a tool for the representation and the preventive management of this type of risk which is of a growing importance for companies. This mapping has to be founded on the potential consequences of legal risk in terms of value destruction, evaluated in three distinct registers : strategic, financial and institutional value. The basic tool for detection of legal risk is its definition itself. We start from the value chain of the business under consideration, identify the legal norms involved in each part of the value chain and evaluate the degree of legal uncertainty ; we also identify the factual events that may intersect the legal norm and evaluate the degree of factual uncertainty. Then legal risk is identified by crossing the results of those two previous phases, enabling us to evaluate the impact of legal risk on value and to position it on a map of legal risks. Each step of this methodology, which is based on analyses developed in cooperation with an internationally established mass retail group, is illustrated through significant examples. We also show that this process contributes to further strengthen the potential synergies between the firm's legal function and the other departments of the company.

The impact of the new legislative and statutory measures on the reliability of the notation of credit Further to the series of financial blunders that punctuated the early twenty-first century and the current financial environment marked by a crisis of confidence with respect to regulation systems of capital markets, this article feeds the debate on the reliability of rating as measuring instrument for default risk, as decision-making tool of financial investment and as a mechanism contributing to markets efficiency. The question on behalf of responsibility of rating agencies in the dysfunction of financial markets is again evoked. Is The existing universal framework that regulates the trade of the notation sufficient ? Would a hardening of the European and international legislative and statutory measures have a positive impact on the quality of the rating and the credibility of the organizations that provide ?

Governance laws and codes : Diversity and compliance The aim of this article is to analyze corporate governance laws and codes in capitalist economies. Scandals (like Enron) occurring at the beginning of the century revealed the need to reinforce control mechanisms. Nevertheless, the publication of an important number of corporate governance laws and codes did not prevent from the occurrence of a new crisis. This article analyses different aspects of these laws and codes of “good practices”, including their vocation and their degree of compliance, and proposes avenues related to alternative recommendations.

Institutions and governance mechanisms for transactions : the case of logging in Cameroon Following Masahiko Aoki (2010), we postulate that transactions between actors integrate not only an economic dimension but also a social dimension. This means that transactions' equilibrium cannot be analyzed only in economic terms. They also include relational aspects that we define as social aspects. Through the study of a local forestry exploitation in Cameroon compared with a communal forestry exploitation in France, we highlight two crucial factors : the dissociation of the functions of mayor and chief of village and the coexistence of payments in cash and payments in nature. The first factor underlines the questions of legitimacy of actors. The second factor reinstates a symbolic dimension through the gift of food and makes it possible to bind in the same transaction an economic dimension and a social dimension. Keywords : institutions, governance, stakeholders, forestry exploitation, legitimacy.

Variations on the term “organic” model of organization : example of Inéo Today the business environment is marked by a high degree of volatility and a strong complexity. Classical models of organization – Hierarchy, Matrix, Network – must be overcome to fit the current form of business environment. We discuss in this article the organizational characteristics of a “biological model”.

The digital social network, between disruption and rationalisation This article studies the digital social network from the perspective of the disruption of order previously established due to the creativity and innovation it vehicles and to the questioning standards in use. The analysis states that this deviation is a source of wealth. At the same time, it is relatively temporary. Once institutionalized, it will fossilize. This has the effect of pushing its transformation or its disappearance. Consequently, order and disorder follow one another. And in the world of living beings, one can not operate without the other and one exists despite the other.

Entrepreneurs and contributors : towards a new industrial alliance ? The existence of a capital account was at the origin of entrepreneurship in the history of industrial capitalism, from Max Weber standpoint. However, the economy of contribution has introduced a paradigm shift in the economics of entrepreneurship. The Weberian or Schumpeterian entrepreneur, both producer and innovator, now copes with the major influence of user-contributor and collaborative innovation in the digital economy. The entrepreneur really acts as an entrepreneur, only if he innovates with the others. Thus contributive entrepreneuship relies less on capital account than on a collective creation account that is at the heart of the cognitive capitalism.

Connected TV : interactions and legal orders The connected TV brings both new opportunities and mess. The announced converging world is first a collision between two sectors that are regulated differently. Indeed, regulations are stricter for audiovisual media and looser for the Internet. This has a considerable impact upon the new competitive deal, especially since the connected TV lets new actors into the audiovisual landscape, which come for the most part from non-EU countries. It raises a question about how to regulate these new services to bring order. In this situation of reform, our contribution focuses on the frame of legal analysis of innovations rather than on positive law.

Order spontaneous or deliberate order : a critical review of the foundations The article is devoted to the foundations of the themes of order and disorder in economic thought, particularly through the “founding myths”. He argues that the neo-liberal economic concept of spontaneous order influences the managerial concept. A place is devoted to the analysis of metaphors, including scientific ones, which underlie disorder approaches.

Legitimacy by the media reference in financial markets : the case of the Wall Street Journal in IPOs in the United States. The public information about initial public offering, according to a strictly economic point of view, is supposed to be completely contained in the equities value. Our article considers rather the information as a variable able to drive investors' behavior and, by extension, the exchanged shares' price and volume (T.G. Pollock & V.P. Rindova, on 2003, p. 632). The media coverage is interpreted, besides, as a mean to strengthen companies' legitimacy. This study underlines the effect of the reference media, as the Wall Street Journal, on the exchanged volumes.

Issues of IAS-IFRS accounting variables between updating and manipulation of net income. Empirical study of French and Tunisian In this article we look at the possible relation between the IAS-IFRS, which promotes a present value, and manipulation of accounting results enhanced by the application of these standards. We are expanding, to the French and Tunisian, the problem of information content of the discretionary component of accounting income in connection with the application of IAS-IFRS. On the basis of : a sample of 120 firms-year observations, chosen for a country like Tunisia, which uses national standards based on those international, and a sample of 120 firms-year observations selected for a country like France adopts the IAS-IFRS since 2004, we studied the relationship of association between accounting variables and stock returns on one side and the impact of the use of IAS-IFRS on discretionary accruals in This relationship another side. In other words, we tried to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the adoption of IAS-IFRS. The study results show that the application of IAS-IFRS accounting standards as increases the information content of accounting numbers. The accounting variables explain published at 33 % yield. However, the adoption of IAS-IFRS allows managers to exercise their discretion to adjust the financial statements based on circumstances and certain requirements. They believe that their intervention in the management of results increases the credibility of accounting information but also increases the level of discretionary accruals in the company. Top ten accounting variables selected in the model, five variables are manipulated and undergo a change.

The effects of mandatory adoption of IFRS on the earning management : An analysis of 100 French companies This article examines the impact of the mandatory adoption of IFRS on earning management in the French context. Using a sample of 100 companies from the SBF 120, our goal is to identify changes in the behavior of the earning management between the pre and post adoption of IFRS. The empirical results reveal that earnings management as measured by the magnitude of discretionary accruals estimated by measuring five models (1991 to 2008) is more common among French companies after the 2005 transition.

Location of the Time Driven Activity Based Costing method with regard to the method of activity based costing The difficulties met by the practitioners for the application of the method Activity Based Costing (ABC), incited them to create a new approach called Time Driven Activity Based Costing (TD ABC). The question which arises at this level : which are the peaks of this last one with regard to the traditional method, and which are the main differences at the level of the progress for the calculation of the cost price.

The book-tax differences in Tunisia. Which factors explain it ? In Tunisia, and following the various restorations carried out, the relation between accountancy and taxation proves to be essential for the determination of accounting income, taxable income and, particularly to detect earnings and tax management practices. Particularly ppPAE, the study treats the sources of the book-tax differences, distinguishing between non discretionary book-tax differences, explained by the discrepancy between accounting rules and tax laws, and discretionary differences explained by management's opportunistic behaviours in managing earnings and taxes to influence outcomes and tax liabilities. The study uses a sample of 234 firms-year observations for 7 years over the period 2003-2009. The results confirm the hypothesis that firms with strong incentives for earnings management, tax management or the two practices combined exhibit high levels of discretionary book-tax differences. The results prove that book – tax differences could be used to capture opportunistic managerial choices in accounting and tax reporting.

Environmental crises, financial markets and environmental communication of the firms : proposition of a valuation method of industrial accidents and environmental crisisMany academic works deal with environmental crisis in order to understand their impacts on market value and communication of firms. The literature considers in the same way the industrial accidents and the environmental crisis, without specify the characteristics of industrial accidents. The aim of this article is to propose a composite measure with five items of industrial accidents and environmental crisis. Four items are extracted from a database of the French Environmental Department. We add a fifth item to take into account the social pressure on the firms that are involved in industrial accidents. We mobilize the stakeholder's theory. The case of Total allows illustrating the relevancy of this composite measure.

Firms performance and family ownership : an accounting approach The analysis of family firms' performance is a matter for debate in the literature. In that perspective, the purpose of this paper is to bring an accounting approach of family firms' performance. Indeed, while plenty of researches focus on a single performance indicator, our research develops several aspects of profitability, solvability and liquidity. This contingent approach is relevant to understand performance origins. Our methodology is based on paired sample t-tests for 50 pairs of family and non-family firms on a 5 years observation period. Gross margin on product sales, financial leverage, self-financing, indebtedness and liquidity levels obtain significant results. Their interpretation indicates that family firms present a higher commercial profitability inducing therefore positive effects on self-financing, indebtedness and liquidity levels.

Mergers-acquisitions : Survey of the accounting systems integration in a group of wines and spirit This research is about the integration of the accounting systems in mergers-acquisitions. We wish to contribute to enrich the understanding of the management of the post-acquisition. We studied the integration of the accounting systems in a group of wines and spirit that achieved 7 acquisitions on the period 1992-2007. The results analyzed, while using the cognitive mapping and the chronological matrix, show that the approaches of this group concerning integration of accounting systems are differentiated very active of the total integration to the absence of integration while passing by the partial integration. Two major reasons influential on the fashion of integration kept : the size of the enterprises acquired and the level of performance of the systems accountants of the enterprises acquired. Of the choices that are the reflection of the working of this group imprints pragmatism and a real capacity of opening that are the key elements of the success of its acquisitions.

Performance of the activity based costing in Moroccan firms While a number of studies relating to activity-based costing have been conducted, relatively few have been conducted in the developing countries. This paper reports the results of a survey conducted of 62 firms in Morocco regarding issues associated with activity based costing adoption and performance. The study finds that the cost accounting system based on activity based costing results in a better performance for enterprises that have adopted it.

The determinants of the relationship between accounting income smoothing and hedging This study examines the determinants of the relationship between accounting income smoothing and hedging by derivatives. The results of the multinomial logistic regression show that the substitution relationship between the two variables is not presumed but it depends on several variables. Only the variable investment opportunities strengthen this relationship but the effect of firm size, financial distress, operational instruments, governance quality and firm exposure is negative.