Since 1973, in the United States, financial accounting and reporting
             standards have been developed and maintained by FASB in the private sector.
             With the mission to "establish and improve standards of financial
             accounting and reporting for the guidance and education of the public,
             including issuers, auditors, and users of financial information"
             (Schroeder, Clark, & Cathey, 2011, p. 11), FASB's work was viewed favorably
             by many countries and many of its basic concepts influenced the development
             of similar frameworks (Kaminski & Carpenter, 2011). On the other hand, the
             IASB was established in 2001, preceded by the International Accounting
             Standards Committee (IASC) that operated from 1973 to 2001 (IASB, 2011).
             The IASB's mission is to develop a set of high-quality standards that are
             The FASB believes in the internationalization of the accounting
             standards to benefit the users of its financial reports and is committed to
             convergence its standards with the standards of the IASB. Therefore, in
             2002, both the FASB and IASB agreed in the Norwalk Agreement to work toward
             convergence of their respective accounting principles, the United States
             General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and the International
             Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) to increase the comparability in the
             accounting standards (Kaminski & Carpenter, 2011). The logic of the
             convergence contributes to the users' understanding and confidence in their
             The IASB and FASB pursue a common framework to eliminate differences
             between both boards by developing standards in areas that need
             improvements. In 2006, the FASB and the IASB issued a Memorandum of
             Understanding (MoU) in which the Boards seek to converge by improving the
             standards (FASB, 2011). However, it is not until November 2007 that the
             FASB and IASB issued their first converged standards and the SEC allowed
             that foreign private issuers to file financi
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