Investigating corporate management lobbying in the U.K. accounting standard-setting process: a multi-issue/multi-period approach

A large body of literature examines the motives of corporate managers to lobby accounting standard-setters. In general, studies confine their examination to single episodes of the standard-setting process (e.g., exposure draft). This article extends the literature by adopting a multi-issue/multi-period approach to investigate corporate lobbying of the U.K.'s ASB. The findings suggest that the extent of corporate lobbying, defined on the basis of the frequency with which companies made submissions to all of the publications issued by the ASB over a six-year period, depends on the size of companies, the debt covenant costs they face and whether they are listed on a U.S. stock exchange. Separate analyses, however, involving (a) the frequency of lobbying on income-related issues and (b) the frequency of lobbying on disclosure issues revealed that, while all these three variables explain lobbying on income-related issues, only size is significant in explaining lobbying on disclosure issues. The results also suggest that the debt to equity ratio is an imperfect proxy for debt covenant costs.     

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

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.     

An institutional theory perspective on the UK's Private Finance Initiative (PFI) accounting standard setting process

This article examines the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) accounting standard setting process from an institutional theory perspective. It identifies three forms of institutional pressures and examines their impact on the PFI standard setting process. ‘Coercive’ pressure, exerted by the Treasury, and ‘normative’ pressure, exerted by the accounting profession, were influential in shaping respondents' comments on the PFI accounting Exposure Draft (ED). It is argued that the views of the accounting profession seem to have prevailed in the PFI standard setting process. This might stem from its institutional legitimacy and close ties with the Accounting Standards Board (ASB). In line with its broader policy objective of adopting private sector business practices in the public sector, the Treasury has eventually ‘acquiesced’ to the final PFI accounting standard issued by the ASB.