Lobbying on accounting issues : Preparer/user imbalance in the case of the Operating and Financial Review

The lack of user response in written submissions on accounting standards has been noted in previous research. That lack of user response has limited empirical investigations with the result that lobbying by users has to be understood largely from theoretical literature in the political and social arena. Aims to add empirical data to the understanding of the user perspective, taking as a focus for the investigation the lobbying of the UK Accounting Standards Board in respect of the Operating and Financial Review. Four issues are chosen for analysis: usefulness to users, effectiveness of voluntary compliance, confidentiality and provision of forward‐looking information. Shows that the ASB’s responses on these four major issues are rational in terms of the relative intensity of lobbying. Using interview methods to obtain user responses shows that a different perception of lobbying intensity may be derived from a comparison of preparer and user responses, such that preparers’ views may have given too negative an impression to the ASB. The relative persuasive power of different arguments is shown to depend on how the comparison is undertaken. Uses the quantitative analysis of responses as a base from which to explore the potential for strategic lobbying to disguise self‐interested motivation and provides some insight on the lack of user response.