Date of Conferral

1-1-2009

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Management

Advisor

Lilburn Hoehn

Abstract

There is little empirical research identifying the structural forces influencing the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). The purpose of this study was to analyze the structural forces underlying international accounting regulation to contribute insights useable by the public, politicians, and scholars to conceptualize the processes of international accounting regulation. Based on stakeholder theory, legitimacy theory, and social network theory it was posited that this network is rationally created to serve certain stakeholder groups in the face of divergent stakeholder interests. The research questions for this study addressed the organizations which constituted the IASB's governance network, the professional and geographic perspectives represented, and the extent to which the governance network was structurally embedded. Social network methodology was utilized within a case study design. All data consisted of publically available existing data. Social network analysis including graphic notations, density, comembership overlap, and co-organizational overlap were employed to produce a representation of the governance network and to measure the extent to which the network was structurally embedded. To provide supplementary detail, the professional perspectives and geographic representations of the actors were measured. The results indicated that the network forms a definable hierarchy that exhibits qualities of structural embeddedness. Banking interests were more embedded within the governance network than any other professional, academic, or social group. Also, a strong Western influence was detected. The societal benefit of this effort was to engage society in general and accounting researchers in particular in hopes of encouraging diverse representation in regulatory processes with both macro and micro-consequences.

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