Management's preferences for accounting standards This study evaluates three hypotheses concerning the qualitative characteristics of financial accounting and reporting standards promoted by issuers of financial statements. The hypotheses stem from three schools of thought--capture, contracting and conflicting paradigms. Each gives rise to predictions about the nature of standards promoted by issuers along the dimensions of flexibility, income effect, transparency or accounting model. Capture theorists propose issuers have usurped the process and we will see more flexible, profit-enhancing and opaque standards. In contrast, contracting theorists propose issuers will favor uniform, profit-deflating and transparent standards. A third school of thought proposes that contention between the Board and issuers stems from a paradigmatic argument over the appropriate model to use in formulating solutions to identified accounting problems. Issuers base their solutions on an income statement model and the Board bases its solutions on a balance sheet model. These three hypotheses are examined by evaluating policies proposed by issuers in their comment letters on three exposure drafts issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Content analysis is used to identify specific aspects of the Board's proposal of concern to issuers and their preferred policy responses. These policy recommendations are evaluated in terms of the constructs flexibility, income effect, transparency and accounting model. From the combination of policy characteristics with level of support for the policies, respondents' profiles along the constructs are derived. These profiles are used to evaluate the explanatory power of the three hypotheses. The results indicate there is a more complex phenomenon occurring than implied by these rudimentary hypotheses. Whereas on average the results support the characterization of issuers' demands proposed by capture theorists, there is some support for contracting theorists' ideas along the three constructs. The results also reflect a strong preference among issuers for an income statement model. [TABLE="class: citation"] [TR] [TH]Format:[/TH] [TD]Dissertation[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TH]Author(s):[/TH] [TD]Tyska, Claudia Ruth[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TH]Published:[/TH] [TD]2000[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TH]Language:[/TH] [TD]English[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]