Designing international public sector accounting standards: An analysis of constituents’ participation through comment letters

Harmonization of public sector accounting is attractingincreasingattentionfromscholarsandpractitioners.Afocalcomponentofthisphenomenonisthesettingofaccountingstandards,whoselegitimacyisparamounttotheirapplica-tion. Asparticipationbyconstituentsisconsideredfunda-mentalforensuringthislegitimacy,inthisstudy,wefocuson participation through comment letters in the due pro-cess. In particular, we explore the type of respondents,theirgeographicalarea,theiragreement/disagreementwiththe documents prepared by the International Public Sec-tor Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) and the issuesof importance to them, through an analysis of the com-ment letters submitted for six projects launched over theperiod 2017–2020 by the IPSASB. Furthermore, we ana-lyzesomefactorsthatmayaffectcountries’participationinthedueprocess.TheanalysisenrichesourunderstandingoftheIPSASB’sdueprocessandprovidesrelevantinsightsforthegrowingresearchintoaccountingstandard-setting.