culture and psycholinguistics to develop arguments as to why and how nationality might affect

these interpretations.

Culture and Linguistic Relatıvism

National culture is thought to be an important environmental factor influencing a country's accounting system(Mueller, 1967; Violet, 1983; Harrıson and McKinnon, 1986; Gray, 1988) and empirical studies show this to be generally true(Frank, 1979; Doupnik and Salter, 1995; Salter and Niswander. 1996; Zarzeski, 1996). Culture has also been shown to affect the design and/or effectiveness of management control systems(Harrison, 1993; Chow, Kato, and Merchant, 1996; Chow, Shields, and Wu, 1999).(See Harrıson and McKinnon, 1999, for a review of the literature on management control systems and culture.) The issue at hand, however, is whether culture affects the interpretation by accountants of accounting standards, in general, and uncertainty expressions within those standards, in particular.

Riahi-Belkaoui and Picur(1991) developed a theoretical justification for the effect culture might have on the perception of accounting concepts. Using a cognitive orientation to culture, they suggest that national cultures act as networks of subjective meanings or frames of reference shared by members of the culture. As such, national culture could influence the way members of that culture perceive basic accounting principles such as"going concern" and"matching." Perceptions of accounting principles varied among samples of U.S., Canadian, and British auditors in their empirical tests.

Bagranoff, Houghton, and Hronsky(1994) suggested that cross-cultural differences may affect the meaning associated with, and hence judgment in applying, accounting standards. They

found differences in cognitive structures related to the concept“extraordinary items” between