SHAHROKH M. SAUDAGARAN and L. MURPHY SMITH, International Accounting: A User Perspective, 5th Edition (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press 2020, ISBN: 978-1-5310-1866-5, pp. 1–377, $110.00).
The 5th edition of International Accounting: A User Perspective, by Saudagaran and Smith is a well written, comprehensive—yet succinct—text that examines the international diversity of financial and managerial accounting practices. This global diversity is explained with well-developed real-world examples, all of which provide the necessary foundation to understand, use, and interpret accounting information within an international context. Notably, the authors explain the underlying reasons for the differences in accounting information by discussing the country/regional legal, economic, and political systems, all of which dynamically affect financial reporting, and more generally, accounting information. Saudagaran and Smith successfully deliver a “user perspective” approach to the field of international accounting by avoiding country-specific comparative technical details. By doing so, they effectively expand the audience beyond accounting students, and...
