Determinants of stakeholder’s participation in the standard setting process of business combinations under common control

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to present empirical information on stakeholder participation in the standardization process to develop a IFRS for Business Combinations under Common Control, which refers to the transfer of a business from one firm within a group to another. For a long time, IFRS Standards required the acquisition method for company combinations but was silent on those under common control. Thus, corporations gave little information, comparable transactions were reported differently, and comparability proved difficult, prompting the IASB to launch a research project to investigate possible reporting requirements for these transactions. Recently, the IASB published a Discussion Paper in which it presented four criteria to help guide the accounting for certain combinations. These criteria, along with the other preliminary viewpoints, were subsequently discussed by stakeholders through the submission of comment letters, which formed our database. The investigation is carried out by analyzing the content of 102 comment letters and then estimating an empirical multinomial logistic regression model. The main findings show that most of those stakeholders support some or all of the criteria provided by the IASB. Furthermore, Europeans, as well as national accounting standard setters, have been the most active stakeholders. The findings also shows that stakeholders from African countries and accounting bodies are more likely to agree with several of the IASB's criteria than other stakeholders. In contrast, stakeholders from non-common law nations are less likely to agree with some or all the criteria stated by the IASB than stakeholders from common law countries.