ABSTRACT
This chapter overviews the trends at work in five countries, to point out several areas of weakness in countries programs, to propose some remedial measures, and to suggest some fruitful avenues for future research into the process by which accounting principles are developed. The American Institute is a voluntary organization of certified public accountants who satisfy a minimum experience requirement. The famous McKesson & Robbins case, which disclosed a colossal fraud in one of country's largest drug-wholesaling companies, led directly to the issuance by an American Institute committee in 1939 of the first auditing statement one step, as it were, ahead of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Canadian Institute committee and the Accounting Standards Steering Committee have freely borrowed the subjects of many of their pronouncements from the Americans. The profession is led by practical men who are accustomed to solving problems as they arise. Yet in modern business enterprise, long-range planning has become an essential managerial practice.
