On the ideological role of employee reporting |
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| Authors: | Hannele Mäkelä |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Accounting & Finance, Bittner School of Business, St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY 14618, USA;2. Durham University Business School, Queen''s Campus, Stockton TS17 6BH, UK;3. Department of Accountancy, John Carroll University, University Heights, OH 44118, USA;1. Newcastle Business School, Faculty of Business and Law, University of Newcastle, Callaghan 2308, New South Wales, Australia;2. Department of Accounting, Taxation and Legal Studies in Business, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY 11549, USA;1. University of Innsbruck, School of Management, Universitätsstraße 15, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria;2. Stockholm University, School of Business, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden;1. École de comptabilité, Faculté des Sciences de l’Administration, Université Laval, Pavillon Palasis-Prince, 2325 rue de la Terrasse, Québec, Québec G1 V 0A6, Canada;2. ESSEC Business School, 1 Avenue Bernard HIRSCH, CS 50105 Cergy, 95021 Cergy Pontoise Cedex, France;3. Crummer Graduate School of Business, Rollins College, 1000 Holt Ave, Winter Park, FL 32789, USA |
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| Abstract: | This paper analyzes narrative employee reporting and problematizes corporate talk about employees. Annual and CSR reports of the 25 biggest Finnish companies from the year 2008 are investigated, and the CEO letters and the special sections addressing employee-related issues are analyzed. The study employs the concept of ideological strategies as developed by Eagleton (1991/2007) to analyze the ideologies underlying employee reporting. The analysis shows that corporate disclosure, though relatively developed in some areas, still paints a partial picture of people within companies. Employees are presented in a fairly narrow, mechanistic manner as efficiently aiming at a kind of development and growth of [only] instrumental value to companies, and not as complex, individual human beings possessing a variety of qualities and needs. The study reveals how corporate talk presents the relationship between companies and labor according to a unitarist perception. Particularly, the study shows how corporate talk works to naturalize and universalize this ideological claim and, hence, hide its contingent nature. The study adds to an increasing body of accounting literature using interpretive and critical approaches to analyze corporate disclosures and to study the less developed area of narrative employee reporting. The study also highlights the possible advantages of social accounting. |
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