AN EXPLANATION OF THE CHANGE IN ACCOUNTANTS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS FLEXIBILITY USING THE THEORY OF REASONED ACTION

In this paper we look at accountants as “consumers of accounting regulations”. We explain the change in the accountants’ attitude towards flexibility in the accounting regulation process, using a theory derived from social psychology: the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). In 1999 and 2005 we tested the attitude towards flexibility of a number of Romanian accountants who aimed at becoming private practitioners. We observed that before the existence of an accounting conceptual framework (1999), the accountants surveyed preferred flexibility with respect to accounting choices. A few years later (2005), after the implementation of IASB’s conceptual framework (but before the regulator removed it), the preference of accountants changed to flexibility. We believe that these changes could be explained using TRA.