Scientific paper from 2011 in the field of Business Administration - Investment and Financing, University of Hamburg, Language: German. Abstract: As part of globalization, and in this case specifically the globalization of capital markets, the annual financial statements of various publicly listed corporations worldwide must become comparable in some form. This is important for different stakeholders such as investors, banks, the public, etc. These stakeholders need information about a company's economic situation in order to easily make direct comparisons between the publicly listed corporations. In Germany, for example, individual or consolidated financial statements are prepared according to national regulations (HGB, EStG, KStG), whereas in the USA, the statements are prepared according to local standards.