THE ROLE OF FIRM CHARACTERISTICS IN THE ACCOUNTING RESEARCH

Abstract

Since the early 1970s a new stream of positive accounting research started to overwhelm the field. It is the idea of predicting managers’ behaviour based on specific facts. A part of this research stream examines the linkages between firmspecific characteristics and accounting activities within firms. This paper aims to provide a literature review of this particular body of research. This review is concerned with collecting the main idea and theories behind the proposed effect for each characteristic. What distinguishes this paper is that it is provide future researchers with an intellectual collection of different ideas and theories which make a complete frame for advanced research. Firm characterises are extensively used in both finance and accounting research. However, only the characteristics that appear most frequently in the accounting literature are considered here. The author tried to be extensive in withdrawing ideas and theory but this does not mean that all extent studies are covered

Keywords

• accounting, firm size