An Analysis of Corporate Lobbying on Australia's ED 49, Accounting for Identifiable Intangible Assets

Abstract

In this paper content analysis is used to examine the lobbying positions of publicly listed companies making submissions on ED 49, Accounting for Identifiable Intangible Assets. A number of content analysis measures are used in an attempt to gain additional insights into the strength of lobbying positions held. The influence of debt contracting and political costs variables upon lobbying position on capitalisation and amortisation of identifiable intangible assets is investigated. Significant relationships are found with the explanatory variables interest coverage, company size, effective tax rate and membership of a politically sensitive industry. These relationships are most consistently observed when lobbying position is measured using more basic content analysis techniques, such as sentence counts and counting the number of supporting arguments presented in submissions. Use of apparently more sophisticated techniques of content analysis fail to perform as well, possibly due to the introduction of greater subjectivity to the process.

Citation

Gerhardy, P. and Wyatt, L. (2001), "An Analysis of Corporate Lobbying on Australia's ED 49, Accounting for Identifiable Intangible Assets", Pacific Accounting Review, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 71-102. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb037961