Goodwill Impairment and Corporate Social Responsibility

Case Study from the year 2019 in the subject Business economics - Accounting and Taxes, grade: 2,3, University of Bremen, language: English, abstract: The issue goodwill impairment is controversially discussed in practice and in literature because goodwill or rather the amount of goodwill which has to be impaired primarily based on managerial assumptions and proprietary information and further the recognition and accurate measurement is not easy and thus often not free from error. Therefore the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) require firms to disclose specific information on how and why goodwill arises in business combinations. Goodwill accounting is intended to provide information on the financial consequences of mergers and acquisitions. It is therefore potentially very important for recipients of annual financial statements. Goodwill accounting in Europe is generally regulated in the International Financial Reporting Standard 3 (IFRS 3) Business Combinations and International Accounting Standard 36 (IAS 36) Impairment of Assets. Goodwill accounting in the US is regulated in Accounting Standards Codification 805 (ASC 805) Business Combinations (formally known as Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 141 (SFAS 141)) and ASC 350 Goodwill and other Intangible Assets (formally known as SFAS 142). Goodwill is defined as an asset representing the future economic benefits arising from other assets acquired in a business combination that are not individually identified and separately recognised. Besides goodwill impairment, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities has become another steadily increasing issue around the world and has gained significance in the view of public policy and management practice. CSR is often defined as 'the social responsibility of business encompasses the economic, legal, ethical and discretionary expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in time.' Especially the relationship between a firm´s CSR and its firm performance, earnings quality and information asymmetry has been subject of accounting literature and research. If specific socially responsible actions tend to be negatively correlated with firm performance, managers could be cautious in this area. If, on the other hand, a positive association can be shown to exist, managers might be encouraged to enhance such activities.