Corporate Lobbying on Accounting Standards: Methods, Timing and Perceived Effectiveness

George Georgiou

Abacus, 2004, vol. 40, issue 2, 219-237

Abstract: There is a long‐standing concern in the literature about the potential importance of non‐observable forms of lobbying that may be used by corporate managers to influence accounting standard setting bodies. To date, however, no study has documented their nature or their volume. This study provides such evidence in the context of the U.K.'s Accounting Standards Board (ASB) standard setting process for the period 1991–96. It also provides evidence with respect to the timing at which lobbying activity takes place and its perceived effectiveness by corporate managers. The findings suggest that companies use a variety of lobbying methods, including appeals to their auditors and private meetings with ASB members and staff. Importantly, however, the use of these methods is significantly associated with the use of comment letters; companies which submit comment letters are much more likely to use other methods than companies which do not. Other findings suggest that more companies lobby during the stages of the ASB process at which public consultation takes place (e.g., exposure period of a discussion paper) than at the earlier stages of the process (e.g., agenda formation) which are considered in the literature as the stages at which lobbying can be most effective. With respect to the perceived effectiveness of lobbying, companies which lobbied the ASB considered lobbying to be more effective than companies which did not.

Date: 2004
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (36)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6281.2004.00152.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:abacus:v:40:y:2004:i:2:p:219-237

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0001-3072

Access Statistics for this article

Abacus is currently edited by G.W. Dean and S. Jones

More articles in Abacus from Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().