Rhetorical impression management in the letter to shareholders and institutional setting: A metadiscourse perspective
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
ISSN: 0951-3574
Article publication date: 20 February 2017
Abstract
Purpose
Using composite style measures of the letter to shareholders, the purpose of this paper is to elaborate dominant rhetorical profiles and qualify them from an impression management (IM) perspective. In addition, the paper examines how institutional differences affect rhetorical profiles by comparing intensity and contingencies of rhetorical profiles of UK and US companies.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use automated text analysis to capture linguistic style characteristics of a panel of UK and US companies and employ factor analysis to determine rhetorical profiles. Next, the authors investigate company-level and country-level determinants of a company’s rhetorical stance.
Findings
The authors document three prominent rhetorical profiles: an emphatic acclaiming stance, a cautious plausibility-based framing position, and a logic-based rationalizing orientation. The profiles represent distinct self-presentational logics and have different readability effects. Rhetorical IM is stronger in US companies, but higher expected scrutiny in the US institutional environment affects sensitivity of rhetorical postures to message credibility and litigation risk, while marginally increasing the less litigation-sensitive defensive framing style in US letters.
Originality/value
The authors develop replicable archival-based measures of prominent rhetorical IM traits of the shareholder letter, based on composite style features. The authors argue that they are qualitatively different from content-based IM proxies. The authors investigate their institutional and organizational relevance by examining how company features and country-level differences affect incentives and constraints for style-based rhetorical IM.
Keywords
Citation
Aerts, W. and Yan, B. (2017), "Rhetorical impression management in the letter to shareholders and institutional setting: A metadiscourse perspective", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 404-432. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-01-2015-1916
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited