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The initial rationale for developing integrated reporting included addressing the failures of traditional reporting to address sustainability issues. Subsequently, the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) modified its stated objectives to emphasise integrated thinking and value creation. There has been debate on whether the IIRC’s process for developing its integrated reporting framework was subject to regulatory capture by the accounting profession (Flower, 2015; Adams, 2015; Thomson, 2015). This paper aims to provide additional evidence on the extent to which this regulatory capture occurred, with an update on current developments.

Data from interviews with key participants in the integrated reporting framework’s development and the IIRC’s Council and Working Group meeting minutes were analysed to identify to what extent the change in the IIRC’s focus can be explained by regulatory capture theory.

The findings show that the integrated reporting framework’s development was subject to regulatory capture by accountants. However, the extent of capture was mitigated to some extent by processes adopted in its development. This is consistent with regulatory capture theory.

This paper critically examines the debate on the extent to which the sustainability message has been lost as a result of regulatory capture. It provides an in-depth analysis of the IIRC’s treatment of sustainability which explores the application of regulatory capture theory and examines evidence not considered in previous studies.

This paper aims to analyze how the administrative structure of pension regulators affects regulatory capture or regulatory influence. It uses a historical institutionalist methodology to analyze regulatory capture.

The authors argue that the less complex allocation of regulatory authority in Ireland makes it more susceptible to regulatory capture or regulatory influence by the regulated industry than in the USA. Also, it is argued that stand-alone agencies are more susceptible to regulatory capture than are agencies that are embedded within larger departments of government. The authors present a five-step process in regulatory capture, with the later steps being used by the regulated industry if the earlier ones have failed.

The authors find that if the regulated industry has difficulty achieving regulatory capture through influencing the executive branch of government, it can also attempt to influence the legislative and judicial branches, as evidenced by a regulatory episode the USA has recently completed. Ireland has also recently completed reforms that may make regulatory capture more difficult. With a complex regulatory structure including overlapping authority as in the USA, when one agency has been strongly influenced by the regulated industry, another agency may take action to protect the public.

The paper presents international evidence as to the effect of the administrative structure of regulators on regulatory outcomes. It tests a hypothesis that the more complex, overlapping allocation of regulatory authority in the USA makes it less susceptible to regulatory capture.

The study focuses on drug safety regulation capture, reveals the inner mechanism and evolutionary characteristics of drug safety regulation capture and provides suggestions for effective regulation by pharmacovigilance.

The article introduces prospect theory into the game strategy analysis of drug safety events, constructs a benefit perception matrix based on psychological perception and analyzes the risk selection strategies and constraints on stable outcomes for both drug companies and drug regulatory authorities. Moreover, simulation was used to analyze the choice of results of different parameters on the game strategy.

The results found that the system does not have a stable equilibrium strategy under the role of cognitive psychology. The risk transfer coefficient, penalty cost, risk loss, regulatory benefit, regulatory success probability and risk discount coefficient directly acted in the direction of system evolution toward the system stable strategy. There is a critical effect on the behavioral strategies of drug manufacturers and drug supervisors, which exceeds a certain intensity before the behavioral strategies in repeated games tend to stabilize.

In this article, the authors constructed the perceived benefit matrix through the prospect value function to analyze the behavioral evolution game strategies of drug companies and FDA in the regulatory process, and to evaluate the evolution law of each factor.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how state regulations become ineffective in holding corporations accountable for environmental degradation in an emerging economy context, with a specific focus on oil and gas and cement industry in Nigeria.

The study draws on capture theory to bring out the factors that have rendered redundant the state intervention to make corporations accountable for their environmental activities. The research setting is the oil and gas and cement industry in Nigeria. Data for the study are derived from both documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews and analysed using a thematic technique.

The findings of the paper demonstrate a regulatory failure to hold corporations to account for their environmental activities. A lack of political will, outdated regulations and the manipulation of the regulators, all have played a part in preventing corporations from being accountable for their activities. In addition, the widespread elite corruption in the country has provided corporations with leeway to manipulate their environmental accountability practices. The study emphasises the need for continuous review of the regulations and efforts to reduce corruption in order to promote corporations' environmental accountability in Nigeria.

The research is limited to Nigeria, oil and gas and cement industries. The theoretical lens can be used to address problem of capture of the regulations and institution in the country.

The practical implication is that it would enhance environmental regulations in Nigeria and emerging economies. It will also provide support from researchers emerging markets on the adoption of capture theory in future research.

It will promote corporate best environmental practices in the country. It will reduce the issues surrounding environmental accountability practices and create awareness on environmental issues among the populace. It will create the impression that corporations will be held accountable for their environmental activities in the country and the need to have improved environmental regulations in the country.

The study adds to the debate on corporate environmental accountability practices engendering insights from the Nigerian oil and gas and cement industry. The paper demonstrates how companies in emerging economies can capture state regulations and how rendering environmental accountability becomes more of rhetoric than a reality with little impacts on the welfare of people and society.

Accounting and water industry experts are developing general‐purpose water accounting (GPWA) to report information about water and rights to water. The system has the potential to affect water policies, pricing and management, and investment and other decisions that are affected by GPWA report users' understanding of water risks faced by an entity. It may also affect financial returns to accounting and auditing firms and firms in water industries. In this paper the authors aim to examine the roles of the accounting profession, water industries and other stakeholders in governing GPWA. Recognising that the fate of GPWA depends partly upon regulatory power and economics, they seek to apply regulatory theories that explain financial accounting standards development to speculate about the national and international future of GPWA.

Official documents, internal Water Accounting Standards Board documents and unstructured interviews underpin the authors' analysis.

The authors speculate about the benefits that might accrue to various stakeholder groups from capturing the GPWA standard‐setting process. They also suggest that internationally, water industries may dominate early GPWA standards development in the public interest and that regulatory capture by accounting or water industry professionals will not necessarily conflict with public interest benefits.

Accounting for water can affect allocations of environmental, economic, social and other resources; also, accounting and water industry professional standing and revenues. In this paper the authors identify factors influencing GPWA standards and standard‐setting institutional arrangements, and thereby these resource allocations. The paper generates an awareness of GPWA's emergence and practical implications.

This is an early study to investigate water accounting standard‐setting regulatory influences and their impact.

The rise of the regulatory state during the Gilded Age was closely associated with the development of institutionalist ideas in American academia. In their analysis of the emergent regulatory environment, institutionalists like John Commons operated with a fundamentally marginalist theory of value and distribution. This engagement is a central explanation for the ultimate ascendancy of neoclassical economics, and the limitations of the regulatory environment that emerged in the Progressive Era. The eventual rise of the Chicago School and its deregulatory ambitions did constitute a rupture, but one achieved without rejecting preceding conceptions of competition and value. The substantial compatibility of the view of markets underlying both the regulatory and deregulatory periods is stressed, casting doubt about the transformative potential of the resurgent regulatory impulse in the New Gilded Age.

Neither capture theory, nor neo‐conservative theory and technical failure arguments adequately account for the behaviour of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OHSA) during the 1970s. A framework drawn from organisation theory suggests that regulatory failure is due to a crisis of compliance resources caused by a flawed legislative mandate. Lacking effective compliance mechanisms, regulatory agencies are forced into a bargaining posture rather than an enforcement stance towards industry. This leads to creation of de facto policy which diverges substantially from the original legislative mandate, and this is read as evidence for regulation failure.

The primary purpose of the paper is to demonstrate how corporate responsibility and accountability could be fostered through monitoring and the involvement of governments in the regulation of firms.

In considering why practices which stimulate incentives for private agents to exert corporate control should be encouraged, this paper highlights criticisms attributed to government control of banks. However, the theory relating to the “helping hand” view of government is advanced as having a fundamental role in the regulation and supervision of banks.

Governments have a vital role to play in corporate responsibility and regulation given the fact that banks are costly and difficult to monitor – this being principally attributed to the possibility that private agents will lack required incentives or the ability to supervise banks.

Banks are costly and difficult to monitor – this being principally attributed to the possibility that private agents will lack required incentives or the ability to supervise banks.

The paper illustrates how structures which operate in various systems, namely, stock market economies and universal banking systems, function (and attempt) to address gaps which may arise as a result of lack of adequate mechanisms of accountability.

The paper also draws attention to the impact of asymmetric information (generally and in these systems), on levels of monitoring procedures and how conflicts of interests which could arise between banks and their shareholders, or between governments and those firms being regulated by the regulator, could be addressed.

Through its supervision of banks, governments also assume an important role where matters related to the fostering of accountability are concerned – not only because banks may have the power to affect firm performance, but also because some private agents are not able to afford internal monitoring mechanisms.

The purpose of this study is to determine if the Brazilian electricity sector is differently affected by the characteristics of the content in the regulatory legislation.

For better robustness of the research, the authors analyzed the period from 1995 to 2013, totaling 4,510 observations. To this end, the selection of regulatory legislation was conducted through Markov regime switching. To identify the characteristics of profile and intensity of regulatory content in each legislation, we applied the content analysis technique.

The main findings of this study position this research in the vanguard regarding other research in the area by showing that all regulatory measures whose characteristics denote market profile of strong and medium intensity affect the risk of electric utilities in Brazil. As contribution from this research, it can be hypothesized that for provisional measures/laws events, the profile and intensity of regulatory content are relevant and have different impact on the risk of stocks and, therefore, should be considered in the design and development of public policies.

The paper investigates by means of content analysis, the profile and intensity characteristics of the content present in the regulatory legislation and to present the impact of these characteristics on the risk of the electric energy Sector in Brazil. The research results showed that it is not all regulatory events that impact the stock market. Therefore, regulatory risk estimates must consider the intensity and scope of each legislation, given that legislation with a higher regulatory content that seeks to modify the sector’s operating rules more deeply tends to have a greater impact on the risk of companies that operate in regulated sectors. Therefore, the paper shows originality and evolution for the researchers in the area, with new and significant information.

The wave of regulatory reforms in European telecoms and electricity industries has had an important impact on the structure of the state as well as of corporations. The purpose of this paper is to explore the establishment of these regulatory organizations at the state and corporate levels within a unified theoretical framework, that is grounded in the politics of regulation.

The case selection includes governance structures at the state and corporate levels in 16 European countries in both telecoms and electricity.

The data reveal that regulatory agencies exist in both telecoms and electricity sectors in all 16 countries under study, with the notable exception of Switzerland's electricity sector. At the same time, business corporate reforms were also evident, mainly via the creation of corporate regulatory offices at the headquarters of the firms. These departments, which redefine the patterns of responsibility within the corporation and have played the leading role in the negotiations with the external regulatory environment.

This paper strives to overcome the tendency in the scholarly literature to look only at one or the other aspect of the growth of regulatory development and therefore also to offer a narrow understanding of the growth of regulation. It asserts that the commonalities in the expansion of autonomous regulatory agencies and corporate regulatory departments suggest that the growth in the regulatory professionalization of the state and of business corporations reflects the changing nature of capitalist economy and society and the rise of a new global order of “regulatory capitalism”.