A response to commentaries on modelling stakeholder perceptions of a new financial reporting system

This is a response to questions raised by Kuruppu and Lehman (2016) and Thomson (2016) on Fontes, Rodrigues and Craig’s (2016) model of Stakeholder Perceptions of a New Financial Reporting System. We clarify some matters that arise from the commentators’ concerns about the intended contribution of the model, and its conceptual foundations. We also respond to concerns raised about the need to adopt a holistic and contextualized approach; provide further insights to the complex and dynamic nature of stakeholder perceptions and their formation; and elaborate on methodological assumptions underpinning the model. We argue that interpretative-based research offers an appropriate and challenging way to further improve and extend the model. We encourage researchers to adopt critical and interpretive-based methods to foster a reflective debate that will lead to improvements in the Stakeholder Perceptions model.