This dissertation attempts to provide an exploratory structure to respond to, and tries to resolve, an existing void in international accounting research. The void is a lack of coherently structured, nation-specific, descriptive research to investigate socio-economic phenomena which may influence financial accounting. This dissertation's salient features include a political economy theory, an exploratory, sociological method, and a case study format. The political economy of accounting, introduced by Tinker [1980] and refined by Cooper and Sherer [1984], emphasizes a persuasive social relations dimension. This theory motivates selection of three countries (the United States, France, and Japan) that appear to have divergent socio-cultural environments. An exploratory and analytical approach of modified (enlarged) exogenism, developed by Smith [1973, 1976] and adapted to accounting by McKinnon [1986], provides an analytic structure for this exploratory investigation. Modified exogenism focuses upon an open, dynamic social system (the process of financial accounting), and provides analysis reflecting four major areas (the environment, intrusive events, intra-system activity, and trans-system activity). After examining the nation-specific financial accounting (socio-economic) structures for each country, an analysis of selected financial disclosures attempts to gain a better understanding of how socio-economic factors have influenced the development of financial accounting. My primary objective is to attempt to provide some insight about ,how diverse socio-political factors have impacted the development of financial accounting in three countries. Library research of nation-specific literature attempts to extract a relatively accurate picture of social, political, and economic institutions and policies, and relates such findings to financial accounting processes for each nation. This dissertation attempts to provide a necessary foundation for future theoretical international accounting harmonization studies.

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Communication and culture both play essential roles in organizations. The effective communication of accounting information is required to coordinate business operations and move the organization toward the accomplishment strategic goals. Without effective communication, the most sophisticated analyses and crucial reports will fail to generate appropriate decisions and actions. Culture is a symbolic system of values that helps the members of an organization explain, coordinate, and evaluate behavior and to ascribe common meanings to events and symbols encountered in the organization. Organizations confine the experience and interaction of its members into structured and recurring patterns. As organization members interact, shared meaning for issues of common interest evolve. A technical organizational language develops whose symbols have definite and common meaning. If the culture of organizations or subcultures within an organization are different, dissimilar meanings could be ascribed to the management accounting terms (symbols) used to communicate accounting information. Dissimilar meanings could inhibit the fidelity of accounting communication within and between organizations and organization subunits. / Ph. D.