Stakeholder participation in the IPSASB's due process

To develop standards, the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) employs a due process in which stakeholders can submit feedback in the form of comment letters (CLs). This participation is paramount for the IPSASB for several reasons, such as their lack of authority to impose standards, gauging support, and identifying problems. However, it matters most of all, to gain legitimacy, which can help motivate stakeholders to implement International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). The main objective of this research was to assess the influence of the IPSASB’s due process and stakeholder participation on its legitimacy. Three types of legitimacy were analysed: input, throughput and output legitimacy. To gain all three, the IPSASB should create an environment in which all stakeholders participate, it should process all inputs fairly and transparently, and it should create appropriate IPSAS that provide the guidance that is needed. This research contributes to the existing literature for all three types of legitimacy for the IPSASB. First, this dissertation advances our understanding of the IPSASB’s output legitimacy by analysing its work regarding financial reporting for heritage. The results showed that though the IPSASB was aware of the core issues regarding financial reporting for heritage, they were unable to create the needed guidance. To this day, the issue still has not been resolved, as can be seen by the continuing search with the rather recent publication of ED 78. Though this chapter was limited to one case, it does indicate that the IPSASB struggles to develop adequate guidance for typical public sector topics for which no International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) example exists, which could jeopardize their output legitimacy