Implementation Processo of IFRS: a theoretical essay on the justifications related to resistance to organizational change under Lewin’s theory

Abstract

The implementation process of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Brazilian companies brought about different organizational changes that in some of them caused the phenomenon of resistance to change, with different levels of intensity. The occurrence of this phenomenon negatively affected the adaptation to the new standards. The objective in this article is to justify the different forms of resistance Boscov (2013) found in three Brazilian companies that were going through the international financial standard convergence process, from the perspective of the three stages of change proposed by Lewin (1947). Using Lewin’s theory, we expect to survey and better understand potential justifications for the incidence of the phenomenon resistance to change in the financial reporting standards. Therefore, a theoretical essay was developed on the theme resistance to change due to the implementation of the IFRS. After the study, it was concluded that, among the three companies Boscov (2013) monitored, only one company managed to achieve the full implementation of the new standards without resistance. At the other two companies, the phenomenon resistance to change occurs, in which there is no consensus on the use of the figures the IFRS produce in the decision process. As the cause of this phenomenon, the company agents’ initial perception is appointed that the change would not offer great benefits to the company’s decision process. For further studies, analyzing the current status of the resistance phenomenon at these two companies and the expansion of the study sample are recommended.

Keywords

• implementação do IFRS
• mudanças organizacionais
• etapas de mudança de Lewin (1947)
• resistência à mudança.