Sebastian Botzem

Standardization Cycles: A Process Perspective on the Formation and Diffusion of Transnational Standards

Standards are receiving increasing attention, especially at the transnational level where standardization aims at coherence and social ordering beyond the nation-state. However, many attempts to bring about uniformity via formalized standards fail. To understand better how such rules successfully span national and organizational boundaries over time, we compare two cases of standardization in international business. Both Windows desktop software and International Accounting Standards demonstrate the need for a process perspective to understand and explain social ordering through standards. Long-lasting standardization processes require conceptualizing how different sequences of transnational standardization relate to each other. We find that at the core of such recursive cycles is the interplay of input and output legitimacy.

The Politics of Accounting Regulation

The global financial crisis underlines the relevance of accounting standards as much more than instrumental rules for corporate reporting. This important book details the accounting standards that embody societal and professional values and contribute to the distribution of financial benefits that put international harmonization of standards into the limelight. Sebastian Botzem reveals that international standards have emerged after decades of contest and political bargaining, which resulted in closely aligned standards, voluntary consultation procedures and a network structure comprising actors mainly stemming from global auditing firms, regulators and international organizations.

Transnational standard setting in accounting: Organizing expertise-based self-regulation in times of crises

Purpose - – The last four decades have seen the rise of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) as the core locus of transnational accounting regulation. Initial steps of associational cooperation were superseded by establishing a standard setting organization that heavily draws on consultation procedures. The purpose of this paper is to focus on recent changes in governance and accountability of IASB in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Emphasis is given to the organizational configuration, the ambivalence of consultation procedures and reactions to mounting criticism after the crisis. The paper proposes that IASB is the heart of a new transnational regulatory constellation in accounting. Design/methodology/approach - – The material and analysis presented in the paper derives from an extensive review of official reports, consultation documents and related responses and a range of additional information available on IASBs web page. Findings - – The paper analyzes how IASB uses legitimation strategies to defend its position as a transnational standard setter. From analysis of recent changes, the paper reveals a growing reliance on – and domination through – consultation procedures. The paper also shows the IASB’S swift action to counter substantial criticism emerging with the financial crisis. Practical implications - – By highlighting developments surrounding IASB, its governance structure and the emphasis on consultation, the paper establishes the importance for public policy of further study and debate the operation of IASB. It could also contribute to re-politicize accounting regulation at the transnational level. Originality/value - – IASB is an integral player in global financial governance processes and is only recently receiving substantial academic accounting research. This paper seeks to provide an introduction and critical account of the organizations development.

Transnational Governance Spirals: The Transformation of Rule-Making Authority in Internet Regulation and Corporate Financial Reporting

Transnational regulation involves profound changes in the ways rules are set today. Based on two case studies on Internet governance and the regulation of corporate financial reporting, we show that transnational governance is best understood as a dynamic, non-linear process. In both fields, regulatory institutions are constantly renegotiated between public and private actors, a process which gives rise to new, hybrid, forms of authority. The hybridization of authority challenges the common distinction between public and private authority in transnational regulation. We propose to characterize the ongoing dynamics as transnational governance spirals. Our comparative analysis follows a research strategy of causal reconstruction. To that end, we identify three mechanisms serving as analytical tools to explain transnational institution building and the observed governance spirals: integration, authorization and formalization.

Legitimation Strategies of Corporate Elites in the Field of Labor Regulation: Changing Responses to Global Framework Agreements

Abstract Corporate elites are increasingly held responsible for issues of sustainability including working conditions and workers’ rights in global production networks. We still know relatively little about how they respond to concrete stakeholder initiatives aiming to restrict corporate voluntarism through transnational regulation. In this paper we report comparative findings on corporate legitimation strategies in response to requests by labor representatives to sign Global Framework Agreements (GFAs). These agreements are intended to hold multinational corporations (MNCs) accountable for the implementation of core labor standards across their supply chains. We propose to broaden management-focused analyses of corporate legitimation strategies by applying a field-oriented perspective that considers the embeddedness of management in a broader web of strategic activity and variable opportunity structures. Our findings suggest that legitimation strategies are developed dynamically along with the rules, positions, and understandings developing around specific regulatory issues in sequences of interactions between elites and challenging groups.

Transnational Governance: Contested rules and shifting boundaries: International standard-setting in accounting

The paper investigates the emergence and development, since the Second World War, of a transnational field of governance for accounting and financial reporting. Recent decades have seen a proliferation of activities and initiatives to make financial reporting standards comparable across national borders. This process of transnational or international standards setting is shown to be a highly political process where actors with different backgrounds enter the game with specific interests, perceptions, strategies and resources. In fact, it shows how contest and conflict can become driving forces of international standardization if organized within a widely accepted procedural framework.

International Accounting Standards in Africa: Selective Recursivity for the ‘Happy Few’?

This study explores recursivity in international accounting standard-setting, focusing on participation of actors from African countries. While the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation bases its legitimacy claims as a global standard-setter on a combination of expertise and a formally transparent set of recursive procedures for consultation of stakeholders, empirical results show that participation in the latter is geographically very uneven. The article argues that conceptual mismatch between the standard-setters objectives on the one hand and the socio-economic, cultural and political conditions in many African countries on the other leads to selective recursivity that is problematic for the formers legitimacy and effectiveness. These findings are of wider relevance for debates on global standard-setting and development.

Strategisches Erzählen – strategisches Befragen: Macht und Reflexivität in Expert*inneninterviews mit Finanzeliten

Das Kapitel diskutiert Besonderheiten bei Expert*inneninterviews mit der Finanzelite. Personen, die aufgrund ihrer Stellung und Expertise im Finanzsektor als Expert*innen interviewt werden, verfugen in der Gesprachssituation im Interview uber eine besondere Machtposition und Deutungsmacht. Dies unterscheidet Eliteninterviews von anderen Fallen der qualitativen Sozialforschung, bei denen ethische Pramissen auf den Schutz vulnerabler Gruppen ausgerichtet sind. Die Macht-Asymmetrie in Interviews mit Eliten gilt es zu reflektieren und im Verlauf des gesamten Forschungsprozesses zu berucksichtigen. Auch fur Eliteninterviews ist ethisch vertretbares Handeln masgeblich, aber in der Praxis zeigen sich Herausforderungen, die die Machtverteilung in spezifischen Interviewsituationen thematisieren. Statt eine Uberwindung der Asymmetrie zu versuchen, legt das Kapitel dar, wie sie reflektiert und ethisch angemessen reduziert werden kann, um ein konstruktives Gesprach entstehen zu lassen, das sich an den Fragen der Forschenden orientiert.

Trust in transparency: value dynamics and the reorganization of the Baltic financial markets

Trust in transparency : value dynamics and the reorganization of the Baltic financial markets

Dynamiken transnationaler Governance – Grenzübergreifende Normsetzung zwischen privater Selbstregulierung und öffentlicher Hierarchie

Mit dem Governance-Begriff verbindet sich die Diagnose eines anhaltenden Wandels von Staatlichkeit. Veränderungen werden insbesondere im Hinblick auf die Formen der Regelsetzung und den hieran beteiligten Akteuren beobachtet. Demnach spielen Kooder Selbstregulierungsarrangements eine zunehmend wichtige Rolle bei allgemein verbindlichen Entscheidungen. Vor allem bei grenzüberschreitenden, internationalen Regelungen wird eine Verlagerung politischer Autorität zugunsten privater Akteure konstatiert (Cutler et al. 1999; Hall/Biersteker 2002; Kahler/Lake 2003; Graz/Nölke 2008).