The Research For Voluntary Changes In Accounting Policies Of Listed Companies

Changes in accounting policies, refer to changing accounting policies from one to another for the same business transactions or events. Specifically, it is divided into two situations:the first is mandatory change in accounting policy required by law, administrative regulations or national unified accounting system, the second is voluntary change in accounting policy allowed by the criteria when enterprise's economic environment and objective conditions are changed. The second one leaves a lot autonomy to the enterprise, the behavior of enterprises are even more deserving to be concerned, therefore voluntary changes in accounting policies have become one of the scholars'research core. From their research, we find that some enterprises just satisfy with their demand for benefit by voluntary change in accounting policy through legal but improper means, not to provide more reliable and relevant accounting information. In China, These driving factors include:huge write-off, earnings smoothing; and regulations of adding or matching stock, maintaining their credentials and avoiding special treatment. But these conclusions base on the company's data before the promulgation of the enterprise accounting system, previous research remains to be considered whether the conclusion is also applicable to further condition. Therefore, this article use the latest accounting data on China in recent two years of voluntary changes in accounting policies, find out the deficiencies and whether still have some unreasonable motive, the ultimate aim is to propose solutions accordingly.In this paper, we use comparative analysis and statistical analysis methods to study voluntary changes in accounting policy, the idea of the article is as follows:First of all, we use rent-seeking and game theory to describe the voluntary changes in accounting policies. Accounting change has the natural function of a rent-seeking, the course of rent-seeking by voluntary changes in accounting policy is that manager is allowed under the appropriate selection and application of a change in accounting policy guidelines to minimize or mitigate the possible negative impact in order to change real income to obtain resources or wealth. From the perspective of game theory, in fact, voluntary changes in accounting policies have many stakeholders in the game, we want to achieve a balanced state, we must create the conditions, envisage the opportunism problem of voluntary changes in accounting policies create a win-win situation.Secondly, we compare China, the United States and the international standards of change in accounting policy. The relevant provisions of China's basic requirements and international accounting standards are same, which reflects the continued convergence of accounting concepts, but the contents of international norms are richer, it considers more factors, and ours only adopt the suitable part of the requirement. But there are a lot of differences of approaches between China and the U.S.A. The United States divides the impact of change in accounting policy into direct impact and indirect impact. They have different approaches, the direct impact uses retrospective application, indirect impact is not recognized. As China's economy continues to develop, there will happen the indirect effects, whether we can learn from the practice of the United States still have to be studied.Again, we analysis the voluntary changes in accounting policies in China's current situation through four parts, the number of the occurrence, the type and disclosure of changes, and economic consequences. We find the number of the occurrence of voluntary change in accounting policy is small, the type of changes are dispersed, the disclosure of changes are not normative. Compare the return on net assets between the company which occurs the voluntary changes in accounting policies and the whole company, one part of the former focuses on 0%,6%, indicating there is still a small number of unreasonable voluntary change in accounting policy's motive, including the increase of profits and the meeting of the provisions in capital market, the other part focuses on more than 12%, indicating the enterprise likely changes accounting policies which has more profit. Change the company's revenue growth of the company which occurs the voluntary changes in accounting policies is higher than the average level of non-occur, but not concentrated, volatile, indicating it will affect the company's long-term profitability, impact sustainable development if the company occurs changes in accounting policies bases on unreasonable cause in order to obtain short-term interestFinally, by analyzing the status of voluntary changes in accounting policies, pointing out the deficiency and putting forward specific proposals. In order to better regulate voluntary behavior change in accounting policy, we should further regulate the disclosure of the contents of voluntary changes in accounting policies, separate the option and supervision of voluntary changes in accounting policies, improve capital market regulation, and pay attention to sustainable development of enterprises.