External accounting and corporate relations in capital markets

This project aims to critically analyze the recent changes in external accounting. One such change is the introduction of IFRS in Swedish accounting practice. IFRS is based on an increased use of market valuation in external accounting. However, the problems with market valuation are underestimated. The increased use of market valuation means that companies' results and position have increasingly become a reflection of how the market has developed rather than how the company is doing. Thus, a company's board of directors, through their signatures in the annual report, are attesting more to the market's assessment rather than to the company's performance. To have information value, the information must be different from general information. Instead of being based on a market assessment, external reporting should be based on the performance of the company. This means that transaction-oriented accounting is prioritized instead of accounting based on expectations about the future where more and more unrealized gains are recognized in the profit for the year. Methodologically, the project is based on three closely related sub-studies. First, the debate on external accounting is studied nationally and internationally, followed by a comprehensive content analysis of annual reports to further identify problems in practice. The results of these two studies are then used to construct interview questions for company representatives and interpreters of external accounting.