Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: DANIEL DA SILVA FÉLIX

TRANSITION FROM STEWARDSHP FINANCIAL REPORTING TO DECISION-MAKING INFORMATION USEFULNESS

Stewardship, usefulness of information for decisions, conceptual framework, Grounded Theory, accountability.

The research aims to evaluate the transition from stewardship-based financial reporting to the decision-usefulness approach in accounting information. The research is based on a review of the conceptual frameworks of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). The conceptual transition is marked by the marginalization of stewardship, with the use of fair value as a measurement criterion that introduces subjectivity and uncertainty into asset valuation. In contrast, the Income Statement is a quality measure closer to the stewardship objective, due to its basis in historical costs and the verifiability of accounting information, which is more aligned with the attributes of reliability and accountability. These attributes were, however, removed in the 2010 and 2018 conceptual reviews by the IASB. The research methodology adopts Strauss and Corbin's (2008) Grounded Theory, which is a qualitative and inductive approach, given the nature of the phenomenon being studied. The Grounded Theory stages consist of open, axial and selective coding. Initially, a screening of articles conceptually related to stewardship and the decision-usefulness, in the Q1 and Q2 classification quartiles, is used. The corpus text is processed using the IRAMUTEQ software on the RSTUDIO platform. ii. The second stage uses questionnaires with interviews using Grounded Theory, with a sample drawn from companies with shares listed on the Brazilian over-the-counter market, such as accountants, accounting directors, auditors, and market analysts. The expected results suggest that the normative prioritization of the concept of valuation decision, of the usefulness of information for decisions by regulatory bodies, shifts the concept of stewardship as an objective of financial reports towards a valuation of assets and liabilities. The conceptual transition of financial reporting may have been favored with implications for reducing transparency, mitigating managerial accountability, and weakening the reliability of the information provided. Still, it does not undermine conceptual independence as an objective of financial reporting.