(A) the current financial reporting system can not meet the requirements of the development of knowledge economy. The typical performance that the current financial report can't meet the needs of knowledge economy is that some forward-looking information, uncertain information and huge intangible assets of some companies with great potential can't be reflected in the financial report. Therefore, it can not meet the needs of information users' prediction. Our current financial reporting model only focuses on hard assets, and excludes some forward-looking and uncertain information from financial reporting through some deep-rooted principles, such as historical cost principle, realization principle principle and reliability principle. In the era of knowledge economy, this kind of information is the most important information. According to the current accounting standards, enterprises are only allowed to measure and report the goodwill formed in the process of purchase and merger, while those self-created goodwill obtained under the joint action of tangible assets and intangible assets owned or controlled by enterprises that exceed the normal rate of return cannot be measured and reflected in the current financial reports, which makes the potential value of many companies seriously underestimated, which is also the distortion of financial reporting information. Because the current accounting report model can't reflect such important information, it will inevitably make investors turn to other sources of information, thus increasing the cost of information search and information risk, and then affecting the effective allocation of social and economic resources. The development of information technology has also promoted the function of accounting to provide information. The application of online real-time reporting system (OLRT) enables enterprises to make real-time measurement according to the occurrence of economic business. With the networking of enterprises, accounting is no longer a closed subsystem. In addition to providing historical financial information, it can also provide non-financial information, management information, analysis and forecast information. Compared with traditional accounting, the accounting space in the information technology era has been greatly expanded. If accounting does not cater to this change, it will inevitably lead to the shrinking of accounting functions. In addition, because the business matters reflected in the current financial statements must be based on monetary measurement, some non-monetary economic matters, such as the human resources situation of enterprises, intellectual property rights, employee intelligence and other soft assets, cannot be fully revealed in the financial reporting system. In the information age, information has become the most important resource of economic activities, and what workers pay is mainly mental work. Knowledge content occupies a considerable proportion in the value composition of products or services. Knowledge capital has become the key to success and the driving force of the company's future cash flow and market value.
(B) The current financial reporting system can not meet the requirements of information users for the disclosure of risk information and uncertain information. Because of the objective existence of estimation and judgment, risks and uncertainties fill the whole accounting process. Enterprise risks and uncertainties mainly include the following categories: first, the risks brought by participating in other industries; Second, the market risk caused by the change of industrial structure of the industry; The third is the transaction risk brought by the choice of different financial instruments in the transaction process. Especially since the early 1970s, profound changes have taken place in the international financial field. The continuous innovation of financial instruments and the adoption of derivative financial instruments have brought greater risks and uncertainties to the operation of enterprises. With the development of social economy, financial instruments are constantly innovating. The innovation of financial instruments involves all fields of financial business. In recent years, derivative financial instruments are not only updated quickly, but also have a large number and variety, and more and more financial derivative transactions are carried out by using derivative financial instruments. The use of derivative financial instruments has great risks and uncertainties, which may sometimes bring huge financial profits to enterprises, but sometimes it may also bring huge losses to enterprises. The bankruptcy of Bahrain Bank in Britain and the "March 27th Incident" in China Shanghai Stock Exchange are typical examples. This huge financial risk has attracted the attention of more and more investors. However, the current financial reporting system is restricted by the traditional accounting theory, which can not completely solve the problems of recognition, measurement and reporting of derivative financial instruments. Starting from the needs of information users, the company's financial report should fully disclose these risk information. However, according to the index connotation and measurement principle of the current financial reporting system, the future risks and all kinds of uncertainties faced by enterprises are seriously restricted and cannot be fully revealed.
Second, the reform of the current financial report is the requirement of the changing needs of information demanders. The motive force of financial accounting development mainly comes from two aspects: first, socialization. The former requires financial accounting to constantly reflect new and changing economic business to reflect and strengthen the basic function of accounting reflection, while the latter requires improving the role of financial accounting information in users' economic decision-making and maintaining its vigorous vitality. For a long time, the above two changes are intertwined, and * * * has promoted the continuous development of financial accounting. Nowadays, the change of information demand of information users challenges traditional accounting. As early as 1994, after investigating a large number of professional investors, creditors and their consultants, the Special Committee on Financial Reporting of American Institute of Certified Public Accountants published a report entitled "Improving Corporate Reporting-Customer Orientation", which comprehensively expounded the types of information users needed and suggestions for improving the current report. According to the report, changes in users' information needs mainly include the following aspects:
(1) From focusing on historical information to focusing on future expected information, in the past, information users often used the historical transaction information provided by financial reports to evaluate an enterprise's financial status and financial achievements, and influenced its various decisions. However, with the advent of the information age, investors' demand for financial information has also changed significantly. On the one hand, the correlation between the historical transaction information provided by the current financial report and users' economic decisions is decreasing, and some of them are even useless. Nowadays, people can easily get more and more information from computer databases, which aims to provide forecast data. On the other hand, many economic businesses closely related to the future development of enterprises, such as derivative financial instruments, information technology assets, human resources value, etc. , has not been effectively and fully disclosed in the financial report. The usefulness of financial reports is weakening. In this rapidly changing world, the value of future forecast information is more important than ever.
(2) The information reported by enterprise segments that pay special attention to different opportunities and risks is a reliable and powerful tool to determine and analyze the opportunities and risks of enterprises engaged in various businesses, which is helpful for investment decisions such as whether to invest or not, credit, etc. Due to the historical development, traditional financial reports do not fully disclose segment information, but with the change of economic environment, users increasingly think that segment information is as important as the overall information of the enterprise, which shows that segment information provided by the industry can deeply explain the opportunities and risks of an enterprise and provide investors with useful information between horizontal enterprises; The segment information provided by region can distinguish the differences between different regions and the opportunities and risks of each enterprise, and provide investors with effective information among enterprises vertically; For the segment information provided by the legal entity that creditors are most concerned about, it provides creditors with the financial and business activities of the legal entity.
(3) Pay attention to the amount and scope of information disclosed in financial reports. Although the traditional financial reporting model can provide certain financial and non-financial information for information users to a certain extent, with the advent of the information age, people's information requirements and expectations for financial reporting are constantly developing, and users are no longer satisfied with the status quo of financial reporting information disclosure. They want to get more non-financial information, qualitative information, uncertain information, company branch information and so on. Through financial reports. As far as the structure and nature of the current financial statements are concerned, they can no longer meet the needs of information users.
Third, the reform of the current financial report
(A) the principles to be followed in the reform of financial reporting Financial reporting is only a procedure for processing and generating information in the financial accounting system. Any major reform or improvement of financial reporting should consider the reform of financial accounting system. For example, in order to reflect the authenticity of the enterprise economy, it is necessary to fully disclose some items that are not included in the existing financial statements. Such as self-created goodwill, innovation of derivative financial instruments, intellectual property rights, human resource value, etc. This will change the traditional financial accounting practice of only confirming the transactions and events that have occurred, and it is necessary to redefine assets and liabilities. Therefore, the current financial report reform should be guided by the principles of financial accounting reform.
(II) Direction of the reform of financial reporting mode The future reform and improvement of financial reporting aims to make the accounting information provided by financial reporting more useful and continuously meet the information needs of information users. This can be mainly envisaged from three aspects.
(1) Broaden the scope of information disclosure in financial reports. The information disclosure of current financial reports is mainly financial information, and its disclosure scope is limited to transactions and events confirmed and measured by financial accounting. Future financial reports should broaden the scope of information disclosure under the condition of breaking through the above restrictions, not only to disclose financial information, but also to expand to non-financial information. Non-financial information, social responsibility information, forecast information, segment information and management accounting information related to information users should be included in the disclosure scope, and "management authority analysis report", "social responsibility report", "enterprise segment information" and "manager and shareholder information" should be provided. At the same time, some "off-balance-sheet items" that cannot be reflected in the current financial statements can also be disclosed in an appropriate way to fully meet the information needs of information users. Moreover, the name of "financial report" needs to be changed, because it will be more than just "financial report" by then.
(2) The measurement attribute of future financial accounting should be the system of historical cost, fair value, cost and market price, which is lower. The current financial report is based on the historical cost attribute, so the relevance of the information disclosed in the financial report cannot be fully reflected, especially in the information technology era. In addition to historical cost attributes, future financial reports should also allow multiple measurement attributes of different projects to coexist, and pay special attention to such measurement attributes as "fair value" and "which is lower between cost and market price", so as to promote the information disclosed in financial reports to truly reflect the existing value of enterprises.
(3) Increase the information of future forecast. For the decision-making of information users, the future information of enterprises is the most relevant. Therefore, the future financial reporting model should add some enterprise future forecasting information, such as enterprise "forward-looking information", "innovative financial instrument information" and "enterprise management information", which is of great help to improve the overall usefulness of financial reporting.
. It is unrealistic for the steps of reforming the financial reporting system to make the financial reporting reform in one step. We should step by step and adopt the strategy of step-by-step reform and gradual improvement. In the near future, some appropriate improvements should be made on the basis of existing financial reports in combination with China's reality.
(1) Attention should be paid to the disclosure of corporate segment information. In recent years, the rapid rise of China's group companies has put forward a new topic for the enterprise reporting system. In order to meet users' demand for segment information, China should establish segment reports, and form a complete financial reporting system by combining China's actual situation and foreign experience.
(2) According to the specific economic environment of China, broaden the information provided in the notes to the financial statements. Due to the traditional planned economy, the notes to accounting statements in China at present mainly focus on the description of on-balance-sheet items, and too little information is disclosed about off-balance-sheet enterprises' future opportunities and risks, off-balance-sheet financing methods, soft assets (such as human resources) and social responsibilities. The notes to the improved accounting statements should include these contents. The disclosure of important matters should mainly include commitments, contingencies, future matters and other important matters.
(3) From the structure of financial statements, the accounting information disclosed in the balance sheet and income statement can be divided into core information and non-core information. The core business of an enterprise refers to normal or regular business, transactions and events, while the non-core business refers to extraordinary or accidental business, transactions and events. The purpose of dividing core business and non-core business in financial statements is to provide information that can best reflect the business trend of enterprises.
(4) From the measurement attribute of financial statements, we should change the original attribute that financial reports are measured at historical cost, and adopt the fair value measurement model for some items in the financial reporting system. As mentioned above, it is unrealistic to completely change the accounting measurement attributes at this stage. Therefore, in view of the reality of our country, the core assets and liabilities in the current practice are still measured according to the historical cost measurement model, while the non-core assets and liabilities in the balance sheet are measured at fair value. Its advantage is that investors can correctly understand the value of the existing rights and interests of enterprises, which conforms to the principle of timeliness.
Model essay on accounting graduation thesis
First, the comparison of accounting theory research methods
Standardized research method refers to the study of accounting theory by emphasizing deduction, thus forming standardized accounting theory. Normative research methods emphasize how the world should operate, regardless of how the world operates. It tries to determine "what should be and what should not be". It is a deductive method to infer the essence and development law of another new thing from the existing scientific conclusions, principles and laws. Deduction is established because it exists universally among individuals. A thing has attributes, and everything in it must have attributes. So it is inevitable to infer the individual from the general. Deductive reasoning is from the general to the individual, which requires correct premise and strict reasoning. As long as the premise is an empirical scientific fact and there is a reliable logical relationship between the premise and the conclusion, then the conclusion must be correct and effective. The establishment of accounting objectives is the basis of standardizing the accounting theory system. Once the goal is defined, some key definitions and assumptions must be described. Based on these definitions and assumptions, we can study the logical structure of the realization process of accounting objectives. Therefore, standardizing accounting theory advocates that accounting theory should not be influenced by accounting practice, but should be superior to accounting practice and guide accounting practice. The accounting model under the standard accounting theory is the result of assuming accounting objectives first and then making logical reasoning. Due to the current differences in people's understanding of accounting objectives, the effectiveness of the accounting model based on a single objective is increasingly questioned today when accounting information becomes public information.
The starting point of empirical research method is to verify and measure the correctness of theory or viewpoint and hypothesis based on factual results. It refers to the method of obtaining approximate correctness by confirming the hypothesis and taking the relationship between facts, actual situations and observed data as the object and through experiments. It is the requirement of the times and the necessity of accounting development to introduce empirical research into accounting field. In modern society, decision-making prediction has become a focus issue, and accounting circles must adapt to the changes in this social environment and provide useful accounting information for decision-making departments. At the end of 1960s, users of accounting information demanded more and more information with practical value, especially the large-scale experimental results to verify the efficient market hypothesis, which brought great impact to the standardized accounting theory, because these empirical results showed that some assumptions on which standardized accounting depended did not actually exist. In this case, people introduce empirical economic theory into the accounting field, and empirical research gradually attracts the attention of accounting professionals. Its specific background is 1976, when Zhan Sen, a famous American accountant, gave an accounting lecture at Stanford University, he first proposed that accounting research should adopt empirical methods. 1978, American accountants Watts and zimmermann jointly published the article "Empirical Theory for Determining Accounting Standards", and in 1979, they jointly published the article "Supply and Demand of Accounting Theory", which is the earliest empirical accounting research paper. Since then, this theory has been gradually systematized. From 65438 to 0986, Watts and zimmermann published the book Positive Accounting Theory, which put forward the basic framework of this theory and raised it to a new level. Therefore, the University of Rochester, where the two professors are located, stands out and has achieved fruitful results in empirical accounting research, so people call the empirical accounting school "Rochester School".
Second, the content of empirical accounting theory research
The purpose of empirical accounting theory research is to explain the observed accounting phenomena and find out the reasons for these accounting phenomena. It is a new theory based on experience and empirical methods and using mathematical models as tools. Positive accounting theory holds that accounting practice is the basis of developing accounting theory, while implicit accounting theory is derived from the observed phenomenon of accounting practice. Therefore, empirical accounting research always takes theory as the end and starting point. The process of empirical accounting research is generally: establishing research topic → looking for relevant theories → putting forward hypotheses or propositions → making hypotheses or propositions operable → designing research schemes → collecting data → analyzing data to detect hypotheses or propositions → analyzing research. The contents of empirical accounting research can be summarized as follows: (1) put forward effective hypothesis and capital asset valuation model; (2) Study the correlation between accounting profit and stock price; (3) Empirical test of competitive hypothesis; (4) Verify the correlation between accounting information and bankruptcy risk; (5) Empirical test of accounting procedures, salary plans and debt contracts used by accountants and managers; (6) Empirical test of accounting and political activities, accounting policy choice, etc. In the above empirical research, the concepts of contract cost, agency cost and political cost are put forward, which further demonstrates the necessity of contract theory and various optimal choices. In fact, in the current accounting theory research in China, there are a large number of topics that can be used for empirical research. More often: (1) What factors affect the disclosure time, content, writing style and method of the company's financial information? (2) Why does the company use some information disclosure strategy; (3) The influence of the company's information disclosure strategy and changes on the stock price and managers, investors, creditors and company employees; (4) The restrictive factors of choosing and changing accounting methods; (5) The economic impact of the choice and change of accounting methods on enterprises, investors and managers and the resulting economic, social and political consequences; (6) The influence of the choice and change of accounting methods on the stock price of enterprises; (7) Social and economic consequences of accounting regulations and standards; (8) How users of accounting information use corporate accounting statements, etc.
In addition, it is also a trend of empirical research to focus on the same topic or subdivide the same topic separately. In order to make the operation of enterprises more reasonable, we must brainstorm on specific topics and discuss them from different angles and with different ways of thinking; Or divide the same topic into sub-topics and conduct in-depth research respectively. This article is ***2 pages, and this page is the first page and the next page. At present, empirical research is in the ascendant in China, and it is a popular accounting research method, especially with the generalization of empirical research content of financial accounting. The accounting report in traditional financial accounting occupies the first place in the whole empirical research of accounting. At the same time, the research on accounting standards and other accounting systems also occupies an important position. To sum up, the extensive development of interdisciplinary research and the emphasis on practical research, that is, the increase of topics reflecting the accounting environment, are also obvious examples. In the future, empirical research on data prediction of financial statements, information users' decision-making and action plan selection will remain a main direction. However, when applying the empirical method, we should pay attention to the following possible problems: (1) the adaptability of the topic; (2) Normality of empirical accounting research; (3) the quality of data; (4) Adaptability of models and methods; (5) To verify the objectivity of the results; (6) Avoid over-concentration of research objects.
Third, the limitations of empirical accounting theory research
At present, empirical research has sprung up in China's accounting field, which is highly praised by many people and poses a severe challenge to standardizing accounting research. For a long time, accounting theory research in China mostly belongs to normative accounting research, and accounting theory often pays attention to assumptions and inferences, lacking application value. With the gradual establishment of the socialist market economic system, new problems have emerged in the field of accounting research. On the one hand, the autonomy of enterprises is expanding, and the economic interests within enterprises are becoming more and more complicated. The influence of internal contractors on accounting behavior driven by economic interests can not be ignored; On the other hand, the number of corporate enterprises is increasing, and the capital market is becoming more and more complicated. The way and extent of the influence of accounting information on the capital market have attracted much attention. Therefore, in order to make up for the defects of traditional accounting theory, it is necessary to carry out empirical accounting research. However, it needs to be clear that the two accounting disciplines have their own advantages and disadvantages, and it is extremely undesirable to emphasize one over the other. In fact, the limitations of empirical accounting theory exist objectively. Mainly in the following aspects:
(1) Use rough substitution variables to represent contract cost and political cost. Because some concepts adopted cannot be clearly explained and quantified, the contract cost and political cost in the verification model have to be expressed as "substitutes";
(2) The finite linear model is lack of evidence, and its prediction ability is low in the hypothetical model;
(3) The variables in the contract are all linear, ignoring the existence of * * * linearity. This makes it difficult to analyze the influence of each variable independently;
(4) Most empirical accounting theories are limited to comparison at a certain time. It is doubtful how representative this contrast is.
Therefore, empirical research mostly focuses on some financial accounting problems that can obtain empirical data, and rarely or never involves some basic accounting theory problems. At the same time, it attaches great importance to the study of the relationship between some economic phenomena and accounting, but often intentionally or unintentionally avoids the technical methods of financial accounting. In empirical accounting theory, the relevant parameters in some models may be exaggerated, so that if the trimmed accounting information is directly used for false verification, sometimes the empirical results will be too reluctant. For example, whether the change of enterprise behavior should be attributed to the change of accounting standards or the change of economic environment. This is the inherent defect of empirical research, including empirical accounting theory research methods. In addition, empirical accounting research is difficult to measure the impact of corporate behavior, especially the impact of accounting choices on corporate behavior. Therefore, from the statistical point of view, there are also serious shortcomings. Even though we have tried to replace it with other variables, we can't avoid its method defects.
From the above analysis, we can draw the conclusion that normative research and empirical research are not mutually exclusive, but complementary. The conclusion of normative research needs empirical research to verify, and empirical research needs the conclusion of normative research as the foundation and premise. It is biased to attach importance to one side and ignore the other. In the final analysis, the purpose of accounting research is to obtain valuable research results of accounting theory, and its research conclusions should be able to solve many problems encountered in accounting practice. In the process of establishing and developing socialist market economy, there are various problems in accounting practice. We should adhere to the principle of seeking truth from facts and analyzing specific problems, and adopt corresponding research methods according to different research objectives.