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Since the current International Accounting Standard 36 introduced substantial subjectivity while testing goodwill for impairment, this study aims to establish if management exploits the discretion and performs the impairment test of goodwill opportunistically. The presence of discretion, while applying impairment test, is tested on the sample of Italian publicly traded companies in the period of the current financial crisis. Despite the fact that the sample of companies consists of those with market to book ratio less than one, only 26% of the companies recorded a goodwill write-off. The logistic regression was used to test contracting and reporting incentives. The results of the analysis indicate that even in the case of IFRS users some incentives exist, while recognising the impairment losses of goodwill.

The present study aims to analyze the use of performance measurement systems within Slovene large, medium-sized, and small companies. The study was performed on the basis of a questionnaire which was distributed to the management of Slovene firms in 2007, analyzing the use of performance measurement techniques in the post-transition period. Slovene companies mainly use traditional performance measurement techniques. Contemporary performance measurement systems were used only occasionally. Moreover, the study demonstrates that performance measurement techniques differ between companies of different size. Small companies have less developed performance measurement systems that are based almost solely on traditional measurement techniques, while large companies have more developed performance measurement systems and also use some more contemporary techniques. Future research should analyze the design of management accounting systems in economies that have completed the transition period to provide ev...

According to the growing importance of intangible assets, the research aims to investigate the significance of intangibles for Croatian, Slovenian, Czech, German and US publicly traded companies. The analysis is focused on intangibles that meet the criteria for the recognition in financial accounts. The results of the analysis prove that in the period 2004-2008 intangibles constitute an important asset for traditional market economies, which does not result for post-transition and transition economies, despite the fact that many analyses underline their growing significance in today’s business environment. Independent t-test was used to test a difference between selected companies. A future research approach should analyze the proportion of intangibles that do not meet the criteria for their recognition and found out if transition economies actually possess a significantly lower proportion of intangibles.