Dysfunctions in Accounting and the Role of Corporate Lobbying: an Organizational Theory Perspective

Since massive corporate scandals of Enron, WorldCom, etc., became public in the early 2000s, the accounting community has been subject to a number of accusations, starting from lack of effectiveness to collusion in fraudulent activities. Extensive institutional reforms and tougher regulatory requirements were adopted in the US, and mimicked all over the globe, to regain investor confidence in the capital markets. Financial reporting and auditing became a prime target for these reforms. However, many of the symptoms for the ails in the accounting community still exist and they may represent a long- term challenge to regulators and capital markets. This two-chapter manuscript is a positivist attempt to explain the current failures within the accounting community using neo-organizational theory perspectives. The authors believe that the disparate power of corporations versus the fragmented corporate stakeholder groups in conflicts with the FASB makes lobbying in particular an effective tool of corporations for prevailing.