Doctoral thesis of Philosophy: The value relevance of IFRS adoption: cross-country comparisons based on harmonization histories, intellectual capital disclosures and the global financial crisis

This study provides comparative findings on the impact of adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) on the value relevance of reported accounting and non-accounting information in a set of six countries with a British accounting heritage but divergent harmonization paths leading up to IFRS adoption. The countries included in the sample are the United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and South Africa. The aim of this study is to advance the accounting value relevance literature through a more comprehensive analysis – including multiple models of the value relevance of primary accounting numbers, the addition in these models of textual disclosures about intellectual capital, longer pre- and post-IFRS adoption periods, and a larger cross-section of countries – than prior studies.