Not So Fast—Let’s Debate! Applying Management Theory to Explore Stakeholder Perspectives on Corporate Reporting Policy

This article presents a debate-based experiential exercise in which students adopt stakeholder roles (investors, executives, the public, and regulators) to analyze financial reporting frequency through agency and stakeholder lenses. The activity surfaces a paradox—short-term accountability via quarterly reporting versus long-term value—and uses a structured debrief aligned with Kolb’s model of experiential learning. After the exercise, students can apply agency and stakeholder theories to a concrete governance decision, analyze trade-offs from multiple stakeholder positions, and articulate policy and managerial implications. Materials include role briefs, student instructions, a theory primer, example student preparation materials, instructor notes and debrief prompts. An online variant is provided. The approach advances debate pedagogy by integrating an accounting regulation topic with a paradox scaffold and a theory-mapping debrief script, enabling transferable insight across the curriculum.