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Book part
Publication date: 30 June 2020

Peter Williams

Abstract

Details

Learning Disabilities and e-Information
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78973-152-1

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 3 November 2023

Donna Marshall, Jakob Rehme, Aideen O'Dochartaigh, Stephen Kelly, Roshan Boojihawon and Daniel Chicksand

This article explores how companies in multiple controversial industries report their controversial issues. For the first time, the authors use a new conceptualization of…

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Abstract

Purpose

This article explores how companies in multiple controversial industries report their controversial issues. For the first time, the authors use a new conceptualization of controversial industries, focused on harm and solutions, to investigate the reports of 28 companies in seven controversial industries: Agricultural Chemicals, Alcohol, Armaments, Coal, Gambling, Oil and Tobacco.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors thematically analyzed company reports to determine if companies in controversial industries discuss their controversial issues in their reporting, if and how they communicate the harm caused by their products or services, and what solutions they provide.

Findings

From this study data the authors introduce a new legitimacy reporting method in the controversial industries literature: the solutions companies offer for the harm caused by their products and services. The authors find three solution reporting methods: no solution, misleading solution and less-harmful solution. The authors also develop a new typology of reporting strategies used by companies in controversial industries based on how they report their key controversial issue and the harm caused by their products or services, and the solutions they offer. The authors identify seven reporting strategies: Ignore, Deny, Decoy, Dazzle, Distort, Deflect and Adapt.

Research limitations/implications

Further research can test the typology and identify strategies used by companies in different institutional or regulatory settings, across different controversial industries or in larger populations.

Practical implications

Investors, consumers, managers, activists and other stakeholders of controversial companies can use this typology to identify the strategies that companies use to report controversial issues. They can assess if reports admit to the controversial issue and the harm caused by a company's products and services and if they provide solutions to that harm.

Originality/value

This paper develops a new typology of reporting strategies by companies in controversial industries and adds to the theory and discourse on social and environmental reporting (SER) as well as the literature on controversial industries.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 36 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 23 December 2021

Victoria C. Edgar, Niamh M. Brennan and Sean Bradley Power

Taking a communication perspective, the paper explores management's rhetoric in profit warnings, whose sole purpose is to disclose unexpected bad news.

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Abstract

Purpose

Taking a communication perspective, the paper explores management's rhetoric in profit warnings, whose sole purpose is to disclose unexpected bad news.

Design/methodology/approach

Adopting a close-reading approach to text analysis, the authors analyse three profit warnings of the now-collapsed Carillion, contrasting the rhetoric with contemporaneous investor conference calls to discuss the profit warnings and board minutes recording boardroom discussions of the case company's precarious financial circumstances. The analysis applies an Aristotelian framework, focussing on logos (appealing to logic and reason), ethos (appealing to authority) and pathos (appealing to emotion) to examine how Carillion's board and management used language to persuade shareholders concerning the company's adverse circumstances.

Findings

As non-routine communications, the language in profit warnings displays and mimics characteristics of routine communications by appealing primarily to logos (logic and reason). The rhetorical profiles of investor conference calls and board meeting minutes differ from profit warnings, suggesting a different version of the story behind the scenes. The authors frame the three profit warnings as representing three stages of communication as follows: denial, defiance and desperation and, for our case company, ultimately, culminating in defeat.

Research limitations/implications

The research is limited to the study of profit warnings in one case company.

Originality/value

The paper views profit warnings as a communication artefact and examines the rhetoric in these corporate documents to elucidate their key features. The paper provides novel insights into the role of profit warnings as a corporate communication vehicle/genre delivering bad news.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 35 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 23 May 2022

Agostino Vollero

Abstract

Details

Greenwashing
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-966-9

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 18 October 2016

Abstract

Details

Corporate Responsibility and Stakeholding
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-626-0

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 8 April 2024

Amaresh Panda and Sanjay Mohapatra

Abstract

Details

The Online Healthcare Community
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83549-141-6

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 22 May 2023

P.K. Nandram, A.J. Brouwer and H.P.A.J. Langendijk

This paper aims to investigate whether managers use impression management through the presentation of non-financial information in an integrated reporting setting.

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate whether managers use impression management through the presentation of non-financial information in an integrated reporting setting.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors performed an experiment with experienced professional controllers and part-time students enrolled in the executive master’s degree in finance and control at universities in the Netherlands. In this experiment, we manipulated the financial performance to test if managers present non-financial information differently based on the firm’s financial performance.

Findings

This study found that impression management is not applied by including or excluding non-financial key performance indicators (KPIs) in the integrated report, but by using more prominent presentation forms for positive non-financial performance and non-prominent ones for negative non-financial performance. However, the use of impression management through the presentation form decreased when the firms’ financial performance was positive. In that instance, this study noted that managers statistically significantly more often decided to present poor non-financial performance in a prominent presentation format in comparison to managers who were not aware of the financial performance.

Research limitations/implications

A limitation of this paper is that the authors focused on only two impression management strategies: opportunistic/under-reporting and the presentation form. This analysis shows that the use of impression management mainly seems to occur through the presentation format. Future research could investigate other impression management strategies in an integrated reporting setting.

Practical implications

The results of this study are of importance for users of integrated reports, because it will provide more insight into whether firms are truly transparent in their integrated reports. Furthermore, the theoretical implication of this study is relevant to regulatory authorities, because it sheds light on the different forms of impression management used in integrated reporting and the influence of positively or negatively performing KPIs on the decisions of preparers of integrated reports.

Originality/value

Therefore, in this study, the authors add to prior literature by investigating the concept of impression management in an integrated reporting setting. More specifically, the authors perform an experiment and focus on different forms of impression management (the presentation format and under-reporting) through non-financial KPIs in an integrated reporting setting and link it to firm financial performance.

Details

Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1985-2517

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives, vol. 10 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2077-5504

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 19 February 2024

Halina Waniak-Michalak and Jan Michalak

The study aims to determine whether a relationship exists between the potential significance of corporate controversies for stakeholders and how organisations respond to them in…

Abstract

Purpose

The study aims to determine whether a relationship exists between the potential significance of corporate controversies for stakeholders and how organisations respond to them in their annual and sustainability reports.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper employs content analysis on annual and sustainability reports of 48 listed companies from the Refinitiv database. The logit regression was used to estimate the model.

Findings

The study revealed that the main factors increasing the probability of a controversial issue being addressed in a corporate report are the controversy’s potential significance, companies’ financial performance and lawsuits.

Research limitations/implications

Our study has three major limitations. These are a relatively small sample of companies and reports, focusing on disclosures made in corporate reports and omitting other channels of communication, for example, social media, and a certain amount of subjectivity in the process of coding information.

Social implications

Former studies show that corporations face a serious risk of their hypocritical strategies becoming too evident for stakeholder groups. Our findings suggest that the risk is already materialising and may undermine the idea of CSR and sustainability reporting.

Originality/value

Our research focuses on high-profile adverse incidents widely reported in the media, the omission of which from corporate reports seems to constitute a particular case of organised hypocrite. It also demonstrates that companies use an impression management strategy to defuse adverse publicity and that major controversies cause minor ones to be omitted from their reports.

Details

Central European Management Journal, vol. 32 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2658-0845

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 14 November 2022

Sara Trucco, Maria Chiara Demartini, Kevin McMeeking and Valentina Beretta

This paper aims to investigate the effect of voluntary non-financial reporting on the evaluation of audit risk from the auditors’ viewpoint in a post-crisis period. Furthermore…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the effect of voluntary non-financial reporting on the evaluation of audit risk from the auditors’ viewpoint in a post-crisis period. Furthermore, this paper analyses whether auditors perceive that voluntary non-financial reporting impacts audit risk differently for old clients as compared with new clients.

Design/methodology/approach

This study is conducted on a sample of Italian audit firms through a paper-based questionnaire. Both Big4 and non-Big4 audit firms have been included in the sample.

Findings

Results show that integrated reporting is perceived to be the most relevant reporting method and intellectual capital statement the least relevant. Surprisingly, empirical findings over the sample period show that auditors do not perceive statistically significant differences between old and new clients.

Practical implications

Auditors can identify opportunities to adapt their assessment model to include voluntary non-financial report information. Moreover, they can use different assessment models regarding the research variables in the case of new and old clients.

Originality/value

Empirical findings highlight the growing role of voluntary non-financial reporting in the auditors’ perception of their client’s audit risk. All the observed voluntary non-financial reporting forms, except for intellectual capital, are considered as relevant by auditors in the evaluation of their client’s audit risk when compared to an indifference point. In addition, findings reveal that female auditors perceive a reduced gap in the relevance between integrated reports and intellectual capital reports compared to their counterparts.

Details

Meditari Accountancy Research, vol. 30 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-372X

Keywords

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