International Business Accounting Standardization and Hungarian Practice

The goal of this study is to describe and summarize the differences between national accounting rules and international standards, then the valuing and analyzing their effects on business decisions, management performance and economic environment in Hungary. Financial data are from published financial statements and Hungarian Business Information database. My sample comprises 65 international standards adopting and 260 local accounting rules user firms. This paper showed that both businesses earnings and stock returns effect on the management turnover. Businesses with lower labour productivity compared to their industry peers have greater incentives to adopt international accounting standards. Sensitivity of CEO turnover to accounting earnings increased after the adoption of international system. Businesses with higher leverage and lagged sales growth have more frequent employee layoffs. Standards user enterprises’ employee layoffs are more response to accounting performance in the post-adoption period.