Comprehensive Income （CI） Statement＇s Compliance With International Accounting Standard （IAS） 1 （Revised 2007 and 2011）： Evidence From Italian Listed Corporate Groups

The move towards international harmonization of accounting standards has dominated the work program of International Accounting Standards Board （IASB） in the past years. This paper aims to verify the compliance of the comprehensive income （CI） statement format with International Accounting Standard （IAS） 1-presentation of financial statements, which was revised in 2007. The changes introduced by the 2011 revision are also taken into account. For this purpose, this study analyzes the final annual financial statements approved in 2011 by the Italian companies whose shares belonged to the Italia Star segment of Financial Times and Stock Exchange （FTSE）. Given that IAS 1 provides little specific guidance about the presentation of line items and permits many alternative types of format, this paper focuses on information organization in the statement of CI in order to analyze the degree of heterogeneity of financial information. For achieving this goal, this study considers the following issues： （1） presentation of all items of income and expense in an overall statement or in two separate statements; （2） a detailed level of the content in terms of number of items between revenue and net income （NI）; （3） classification of expenses either by nature or by function; （4） number and type of intermediate margins; and （5） presentation of items of other comprehensive income （OCI） either before tax or net of tax. The results show some clear evidences. On the one hand, there is a high diversity in accounting practices, which makes it difficult for users to compare financial information across entities, highlighting the need to complete the joint project of the standards setters （IASB and Financial Accounting Standards Board （FASB）） on financial statement presentation. On the other hand, some alternative types of presentation （e.g., the tendency to split the CI statement into two statements rather than using an integrated solution, the prevalence to disaggregate the expenses by nature, etc.） are used by most of the entities of the sample possibly because of the influence of Italian accounting culture.

Review on the Development of Human Resource Accounting in China

A review through the origination, development and prospect of Human resource accounting (HRA) is presented based on the study of plentiful literatures about it. HRA is defined as an accounting procedure and method to discriminate and measure the data of human resources, aiming to provide information which is concerned with the change of human resources for the outside people to serve human resource management. It is experiencing a nearly frozen period following its hot time in 1970s after its origination in America in 1960s. The theoretic foundation of HRA is classical plutonomy dated back to 17th century. There were two preeminent persons in the history of HRA. One was Theodore Schultz who established his human capital theory relating education that improves the human capital value with economy; the other was Eric G.FIamholtz who enriched the concept, research methods and application of HRA. In China, the research on HRA started in 1980s beginning with introducing overseas achievements. Multiple views coexist in the academy on whether human resources should be taken as accounting assets and on where to put the HRA information in financial statements. The application of HRA is constrained by the absence of full-blown theories and methodological systems about it as well as difficulties in evaluating human resources and the obstacle of conventional understandings. However, with the conning of intellective economy, the globalization of competition and the entry of China into WTO, the day of HRA will surely come.

Accounting Policies of Companies Reporting According to IFRS

The article deals with accounting policies of companies reporting in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards （IFRS）. Despite of being in accordance with corresponding standards, there are some particular accounting policies that are not being used by companies. The article aims to highlight some of these areas and point out to accounting policies that are prevalent in IFRS＇s accounting practice