Substantive and symbolic strategies sustaining the environmentally friendly ideology: A media-sensitive analysis of the discourse of a leading French utility
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
ISSN: 0951-3574
Article publication date: 14 May 2019
Issue publication date: 18 June 2019
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to longitudinally explore the symbolic and substantive ideological strategies located in ENGIE’s environmental discourse while considering the specific negative media context surrounding the company’s environmental activities.
Design/methodology/approach
Thompson’s (2007) and Eagleton’s (2007) theorizations are used to build an extended ideological framework to analyze ENGIE’s environmental talk from 2001 to 2015.
Findings
ENGIE drew extensively on a combination of symbolic and substantive ideological strategies in its annual and sustainability reports while ignoring several major issues raised in the press. Its substantive ideological mode of operation included actions for the environment, innovation, partnerships and educating stakeholders/staff, while its symbolic ideological mode of operation used issue identification, legal compliance, rationalization, stakeholders’ responsibilization and unification. Both ideological modes of operation worked synergistically to cast a positive light on ENGIE’s environmental activities, sustaining the ideology of a company that reconciles the irreconcilable despite negative press coverage.
Originality/value
This paper develops the notion of environmentally friendly ideology to analyze the environmental discourse of a polluting company. It is the first to use both Thompson’s and Eagleton’s ideological frameworks to make sense of corporate environmental discourse. Linking corporate discourse with media coverage, it further contributes to the burgeoning literature that interpretively distinguishes between symbolic and substantive ideological strategies by highlighting the company’s progressive shift from symbolic to more substantive disclosure.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors benefited from the comments made by two anonymous reviewers and the Editor Lee Parker. The authors acknowledge the comments from participants at the 2018 Alternative Accounts Conference (Montreal) and the 2018 Center for Social and Environmental Accounting Research Conference (Toronto), and the financial support of CPA Canada- Canadian Academic Accounting Association (CAAA) Research Fund.
Citation
Chelli, M., Durocher, S. and Fortin, A. (2019), "Substantive and symbolic strategies sustaining the environmentally friendly ideology: A media-sensitive analysis of the discourse of a leading French utility", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 1013-1042. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-02-2018-3343
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited