The municipal corporation’s choice of accounting standard set will be explained through
the use of IT and PAT. We will treat the theories separately and derive predictions about
accounting choice from each of them. The separate derivations will indicate that to a large
extent they create the same hypotheses, but use different logics in derivation, suggesting
that they are complementary in nature. Then the predictions will be statistically tested on
an empirical sample of Swedish municipal corporations and the accounting choices they
made in the year 2001. The outcome of the empirical test will emphasize the weaknesses
and strengths of the different theories, and will ultimately suggest a road towards a productive
reconciliation. This integrative ambition, being based more on explanatory power
than theoretical purity, will therefore make the case for an Eclectic Accounting Theory
(EAT).