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This paper aims to provide empirical evidence on formal stakeholder participation (or “lobbying”) in the early phase of the International Sustainability Standards Board’s (ISSB’s) standard-setting.

Drawing on a rational-choice framework, this paper conducts a content analysis of comment letters (CLs) submitted to the ISSB in response to its first two exposure drafts (published in 2022) to investigate stakeholder participation across different groups and jurisdictional origins. The analyses examine participation in terms of frequency (measured using the number of participating stakeholders) and intensity (measured using the length of CLs).

Preparers and users of sustainability reports emerge as the largest participating stakeholder groups, while the accounting/sustainability profession participates with high average intensity. Surprisingly, preparers do not outweigh users in terms of participation frequency and intensity; and large preparers outweigh smaller ones in terms of participation intensity but not participation frequency. Internationally, stakeholders from countries with a private financial accounting standard-setting system participate more frequently and intensively than others. In addition, country-level economic wealth and sustainability performance are positively associated with more participating stakeholders.

This study is of interest for organizations and stakeholders involved in or affected by standard-setting in the field of sustainability reporting. The finding of limited participation by investors and from developing countries suggests the ISSB take actions to enhance the voice of those stakeholders.

The imbalances in stakeholder participation that were found pose potential threats to an important aspect of the input legitimacy of the ISSB’s standard-setting process.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to explore stakeholder participation by means of CLs with the ISSB in terms of frequency and intensity.

This paper offers insights into the conflicts and tensions within the Malaysian accounting profession and the power struggle therein to dominate the accounting standard setting process, within the context of a rapidly developing country. It shows how interest groups and parochial interests, along with issues of self‐protection, affected the process of standard setting, which was controlled by different interests over the period under study. At one time the profession dominated. But far from being a monolithic body, it was in turn split according to various interests: the Big Six behind the Malaysian Association of Certified Public Accountants (MACPA) and the smaller firms behind the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA). At other times big business prevailed. These conflicts and power struggles are revealed through an analysis of the case of the Goodwill Accounting Standard.

Discussion about the actual nature of political action is unusual in the literature about the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Examines the treatment of politics in the US standard setting context and this analysis results in the conclusion that despite widespread recognition that standard setting is political, what this means is greatly underappreciated. Moving knowledge about financial accounting policy towards a more adequate realization of its political nature is furthered by a discussion of the roles of power, ideology and rhetoric.

In the UK, the role of the state in accounting regulation has been ambivalent for some decades. On the one hand, confidence has been openly expressed in the system of private sector accounting regulation1 while accounting standards have been granted legitimacy through recognition in company law2. On the other hand government has introduced some detailed regulation through company law and has always been involved in both the institutions and processes of private sector regulation. This involvement has not necessarily been passive, and has often been covert leading to reports of threats of counter‐action by the government on some specific issues (Robson, 1988). Indeed, it is felt that fear of intervention by the government provides some of the rationale for private sector regulation (Bromwich, 1981, Sharp, 1971, Taylor and Turley, 1986). Providing a sharp contrast to the UK government’s actions towards the standard setting body, the sunshine policy of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in the US, means that governmental influence is overt whether in the area of a single issue or the future of the private sector standard setting (Beresford, 1993).

The last four decades have seen the rise of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) as the core locus of transnational accounting regulation. Initial steps of associational cooperation were superseded by establishing a standard setting organization that heavily draws on consultation procedures. The purpose of this paper is to focus on recent changes in governance and accountability of IASB in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Emphasis is given to the organizational configuration, the ambivalence of consultation procedures and reactions to mounting criticism after the crisis. The paper proposes that IASB is the heart of a new transnational regulatory constellation in accounting.

The material and analysis presented in the paper derives from an extensive review of official reports, consultation documents and related responses and a range of additional information available on IASB's web page.

The paper analyzes how IASB uses legitimation strategies to defend its position as a transnational standard setter. From analysis of recent changes, the paper reveals a growing reliance on – and domination through – consultation procedures. The paper also shows the IASB’S swift action to counter substantial criticism emerging with the financial crisis.

By highlighting developments surrounding IASB, its governance structure and the emphasis on consultation, the paper establishes the importance for public policy of further study and debate the operation of IASB. It could also contribute to re-politicize accounting regulation at the transnational level.

IASB is an integral player in global financial governance processes and is only recently receiving substantial academic accounting research. This paper seeks to provide an introduction and critical account of the organization's development.

Accounting standards are issued only after a comprehensive due process, which includes opportunities for external constituents to participate via public hearings and comment letters. The purpose of this paper is to identify stakeholders unique to government and evaluate the extent to which they respond to 13 due process documents issued by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). The results provide insight into the comment letter element of due process – who participates, in what way do they participate, and why do they participate?

Comment letters received by the GASB in response to eleven exposure drafts and three preliminary views (PV) documents from 2010-2013 were examined, and respondents were categorized according to Cheng’s (1994) model as modified by Kidwell and Lowensohn (2011), resulting in the following 16 participant types: academics, budget officers, bureaucratic managers, state auditors/controllers, citizens, financial markets, elected officials, external auditors/CPA firms, finance officers, government accountants, government auditors, interest groups, media, professional associations, standard setters, and other governments. The authors next examined responses in favor of and opposed to for each document by group and responses by stakeholder group over time.

The authors find that participants came from various stakeholder groups. Consistent with findings in different standard-setting environments, the primary financial statement preparers – finance officers – were the most frequent individual respondents; however, there was participation from a wide variety of stakeholders. Responses are generally constructive and relatively consistent in their balance of favorable and unfavorable feedback over time, with a few exceptions. Closer examination of comment letters in response to the financial projections PV document reveals both conceptual and practical considerations underlying respondent participation.

Motivations for participation were discerned from the letter content, but direct data on motivation was not measured, limiting the conclusions to apparent motivation. Future research might examine the extent to which comment letter content is incorporated into the basis of conclusions section of issued standards to assess the direct impact of comment letters on the governmental accounting standard-setting process. It would also be relevant to trace specific projects that advanced from a PV stage to the exposure draft stage to assess whether the proportional participation of these stakeholder groups is different throughout due process.

The GASB has long been receptive to constituent feedback (Lowensohn, 2000) and can glean useful input from comment letters. By closely examining arguments impounded within comment letters, including conceptual and practical considerations, and by utilizing a more delineated understanding of the stakeholders in governmental accounting standard setting, the Board can better forge into the future.

Much of the extant research documents that stakeholder participation is relatively low, given the number of parties affected by accounting standards. Prior research into both public and private sector accounting standard setting in the USA and abroad has not used all unique actors specific to the public sector. Using a comprehensive stakeholder model designed for the governmental environment, the authors examine who participates in the GASB comment letter process, assess the nature of GASB comment letter participant responses, determine whether relative participation by stakeholder group is relatively constant over time, and consider why the participants respond.

The purpose of this paper is to add to the literature on accounting change in explaining a decade-long effort by the FASB and IASB to develop a set of global accounting standards accepted by markets worldwide. This research studies the effort as one of “convergence” in accounting standards and aims to bring theoretical and empirical clarity as to how we can conceptualize the notion of convergence.

Through a longitudinal study of 23 key FASB-IASB projects undertaken between 2002 and 2011, this paper analyzes processes of accounting change using a blend of institutional theory and political economy. A process perspective provides a method to unfold variants of accounting change by identifying patterns that help us to understand the conditions for and characteristics of convergence.

The author highlights specific variants of accounting change observed during the convergence effort – direct emulation, difference reduction and progressive redesign – as analogous to institutional processes. Where direct emulation and difference reduction reflect institutional processes of imitation and editing or translation, respectively, the author shows how progressive redesign of accounting standards goes beyond these classical categorizations to encompass the notion of “institutional co-construction” (Djelic, 2008).

A longer (shorter) period of study and a greater (lesser) number of projects could be argued for a more comprehensive (more detailed) study; however, limiting the period and project to the terms of the formal convergence program allows for forces driving this particular process to be isolated and their effects extrapolated to broader thinking on accounting and global regulation.

This research informs the global standard-setting community of the evolution of convergence and the factors which impact that evolution by revealing the influence of various institutions, actors and events over time. In particular, the author identifies the impact of the competitive and cooperative conditions under which the FASB-IASB convergence effort operated and reveal how these conditions were influenced by the macro-level economic and political developments occurring over the period.

The objective of this paper is to critically examine the Canadian Accounting Standards Board's (AcSB) legitimacy management strategies directed toward financial statement users.

Suchman's legitimacy typology is used as a lens through which the AcSB's legitimacy management strategies directed toward users are analyzed. The data sources consist of documentary public information available for the overall Canadian standard‐setting process and for a sample of standard‐setting projects.

The results indicate that the AcSB devotes much more efforts to symbolic features and cultural accounts than to pragmatic concerns to ensure its legitimacy toward financial statement users. The legitimacy management strategies used mimic those in the USA and at the international level. Such an isomorphism contributes to the AcSB's cognitive legitimacy and overall cultural legitimacy.

Future research could assess a standard‐setting institution legitimacy management strategies directed to other audiences such as preparers, auditors, or other groups that fall under a broader public interest umbrella.

The results provide Canadian users with a general picture of the AcSB's efforts in their regard and invite them to be sceptical and critical about the so‐called user perspective in standard setting. It also provides standard setters with a legitimacy framework that they can use to identify areas for improvement to enhance users' view of their legitimacy and to help them better fulfil their mission statement.

This paper innovates by studying a standard‐setting institution legitimacy management strategies directed toward a specific audience, financial statement users.

Corporate reporting infrastructure and communication are being transformed by the emergence of digital technologies. A key element of the digital accounting infrastructure underpinning international corporate reporting is the IFRS Taxonomy, a digital representation of international accounting standards that is required by firms to produce digital corporate reports. The purpose of this paper is to trace the development, governance and adoption of the IFRS Taxonomy to highlight the implications for accounting practice and standard-setting.

The authors mobilise Actor Network Theory and a model of transnational standardisation to analyse the process surrounding the formation and diffusion of the IFRS Taxonomy as a legitimate “reference” of the IFRS Standards. The authors trace the process using interview, observation and documentary evidence.

The analysis shows that while the taxonomy enables IFRS-based reporting in the digital age, tensions and detours result in the need for a realignment of the perspectives of both accounting standard-setters and taxonomy developers that have transformative implications for accounting practice and standard-setting.

The study explains how and why existing accounting standards are transformed by technology inscriptions with reflexive effects on the formation and diffusion of accounting standards. In doing so, the paper highlights the implications that arise as accounting practice adapts to the digitalisation of corporate reporting.

This paper explores how the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has dealt with the emerging issue of accounting for cryptocurrencies by investigating its constituents' expectations and the motivations underlying its regulatory response.

The theoretical lens of regulatory space is used to analyse the four-year debate around cryptocurrency holdings and informs the extensive thematic analysis of public documents, meetings recordings and comment letters on the topic.

Facing national standard setters' initiatives to regulate accounting for cryptocurrency, the IASB defended its position in the regulatory space through an agenda decision based on ewct 2xisting standards, which was finalised by the International Financial Reporting Standards Interpretation Committee (IFRS IC) despite criticism from constituents and Board members.

The paper provides insights into the IASB approach to a regulatory vacuum regarding a new class of items, which derive from a new and rapidly-evolving technology. Disruptive technology impacts the contested arena of accounting regulation, in which the constituents ask for new solutions and the IASB tries to resist such pressures, while defending its position.

The paper sheds light on the growing importance of agenda decisions in the IFRS environment and on the limits of the IASB long regulatory process in the circumstance of emerging accounting issues deriving from rapidly-evolving technology.

This investigation is timely and relevant as it considers the regulatory issues arising from disruptive technological innovations (i.e. cryptocurrency), shedding light on the limits of regulatory processes in times of technological change.