ABSTRACT
In the late 1960s, a literature began to build on the two related subjects of (a) the growing interest by third parties in the establishment of accounting standards, and (b) the impact of accounting standards, and especially changes in those standards, on the behavior of affected parties. In 1968, Moonitz wrote that
The stake of nonprofessionals in the consequences of any given set of [accounting] principles is too great for them to accept the decisions of a body of technical experts on a voluntary basis, no matter how eminent those experts or how persuasive the research support for their findings [1968, p. 631].
