Accounting standard-setting through adaptation: Models and Contextual Factors in the Case of the Swedish Standard K3

Abstract: Back cover text: As an alternative to drafting standards from scratch, many accounting standard-setters make use of existing standards. Thereby, they adopt an existing standard or use an existing standard as a model subject to adaptation. In national accounting standard-setting, adoption typically proves neither desirable nor possible. Standard-setters may find themselves compelled to adapt their model(s) with respect to contextual factors such as accounting legislation, the link between accounting and taxation, and differential reporting frameworks.The present thesis explores the considerations of models and contextual factors that a standard-setter makes in national accounting standard-setting through adaptation. Contemporary Swedish developments provided a suitable case study: the Swedish Accounting Standards Board Bokföringsnämnden’s K3 standard, essentially targeting large entities not listed on a regulated market. Subscribing to an inductive logic of research design, the refined research questions and the findings emerged through coding and analysis of the standard-setter’s documents, observations of the standard-setter’s working group meetings, and interviews with people involved in developing K3. It is in the nature of the role that accounting standard-setters consider models and contextual factors. However, the dimensions of such considerations are not given. Not least, the standard-setter’s considerations of models and contextual factors in interplay with each other turned out as illustrative of the complexities involved in national accounting standard-setting through adaptation.