Henning Zülch, Sebastian Hoffmann

• Lobbying in accounting standard setting has been researched since the 1980s. In this respect, finding linkages between the decision makers and the several interest groups in the political process of accounting standard setting is of highest interest. Up to now only few attempts have been made to do this, e.g. by examining monetary flows or conducting network analyses. Where such proxies are not available, it is quite hard to make those aforementioned linkages visible. In this paper we use publicly available statements concerning the modernization of German GAAP to identify linkages between accounting standard decision makers (i.e. in our case parliamentarians) and interest groups (here in form of associations) in Germany, using a qualitative research method called ‘condensed content analysis’._x000D_ The analysis identifies considerable similarities in statements of parliamentarians and interest groups from which some kind of linkage may be concluded. We also argue that our research design may also be used in future international accounting standard setting and lobbying research to enrich the up to now mostly quantitative analyses.