[In]visible [in]tangibles: Visual portraits of the business élite
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors construct a framework from art theory to interpret portraits of the business elite and their associated intangibles, and identify four sets of rhetorical codes in portraiture: physical, dress, spatial and interpersonal.
Abstract: Visual portraits of the business elite are widely disseminated, and form significant sites for communicating messages regarding leadership and associated intellectual, symbolic and social intangibles, yet have been neglected in accounting research. At the same time, accounting for intangibles is recognised to be inadequate. This inter-disciplinary article constructs a framework from art theory to interpret portraits of the business elite and their associated [in]visible [in]tangibles. Four sets of rhetorical codes in portraiture are identified: physical, dress, spatial and interpersonal. Illustrative portraits from annual reports and the media are analysed to indicate how [in]visible [in]tangibles are portrayed through visual rhetoric.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present five distinct approaches to feature visuals in research designs and to include the visual dimension in scholarly inquiry, and introduce methodological and theoretical roots of visual studies in a number of disciplines that have a long-standing tradition of incorporating the visual.
Abstract: With the unprecedented rise in the use of visuals, and its undeniable omnipresence in organizational contexts, as well as in the individual's everyday life, organization and management science has recently started to pay closer attention to the to date under-theorized “visual mode” of discourse and meaning construction. Building primarily on insights from the phenomenological tradition in organization theory and from social semiotics, this article sets out to consolidate previous scholarly efforts and to sketch a fertile future research agenda. After briefly exploring the workings of visuals, we introduce the methodological and theoretical “roots” of visual studies in a number of disciplines that have a long-standing tradition of incorporating the visual. We then continue by extensively reviewing work in the field of organization and management studies: More specifically, we present five distinct approaches to feature visuals in research designs and to include the visual dimension in scholarly inquiry. Su...
355 citations
TL;DR: The field of visual research in management studies is developing rapidly and has reached a point of maturity where it is useful to bring together and evaluate existing work in this area and to critically assess its current impact and future prospects.
Abstract: The field of visual research in management studies is developing rapidly and has reached a point of maturity where it is useful to bring together and evaluate existing work in this area and to critically assess its current impact and future prospects. Visual research is broadly defined to encompass a variety of forms, including pictures, graphs, film, web pages and architecture. It also incorporates work from several sub-disciplines (organization studies, marketing, accounting, human resources, tourism and IT), and includes research based on pre-existing visual material and studies that use researcher-generated visual data. The authors begin by considering the growing recognition of the visual turn in management research as a counterweight to the linguistic turn, while also discussing reasons for resistance to visual approaches. Next, they review research that uses visual methods to study management and organization and suggest that visual management studies may be categorized according to whether methods used are empirically driven or theory based. This categorization highlights the philosophical, theoretical and interdisciplinary underpinnings of visual management studies. It also enables the visual to be accorded a status equivalent to linguistic meaning, through dispelling the realist assumptions that have impeded analytical development of visual management studies to date.
244 citations
Cites background from "[In]visible [in]tangibles: Visual p..."
...The many and diverse issues at stake in visual management studies range from: corporate identity and brand management (Schroeder 2005, 2012) to visually constructed representations of corporate leadership (Davison 2010; Guthey and Jackson 2005); from ideological questions such as gender (Brewis 1998; Kuasirikun 2010) to fun at work (Warren 2002); memorialization of organizational death (Bell 2012) to trust and accountability (Cho et al....
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...…studies range from: corporate identity and brand management (Schroeder 2005, 2012) to visually constructed representations of corporate leadership (Davison 2010; Guthey and Jackson 2005); from ideological questions such as gender (Brewis 1998; Kuasirikun 2010) to fun at work (Warren 2002);…...
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...Also drawing on art theory, Davison (2010) constructs a model of visual portraiture from art theory (physical, dress, spatial and interpersonal codes) and uses it to analyse intangible aspects of business communicated by portraits of business leaders in corporate annual reports (e.g. Reuters CEO…...
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate whether firms use graphs in their sustainability reports in order to present a more favorable view of their social and environmental performance, and they find considerable evidence of favorable selectivity bias in the choice of items graphed, and moderate evidence that where distortion in graphing occurs, it also has a favorable bias.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether firms use graphs in their sustainability reports in order to present a more favorable view of their social and environmental performance. Further, because prior research indicates that companies use social and environmental disclosure as a tool to reduce their exposure to social and political pressures (the legitimacy argument), we also examine whether differences in the extent of impression management are associated with differences in social and environmental performance. Based on an analysis of graphs in sustainability reports for a sample of 77 U.S. companies for 2006, we find considerable evidence of favorable selectivity bias in the choice of items graphed, and moderate evidence that where distortion in graphing occurs, it also has a favorable bias. Our results regarding the relation between impression management and performance are mixed. Whereas we find that graphs of social items in sustainability reports for companies with worse socia...
161 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify researcher choices related to the use of photographs in organizational research, clarify the advantages and disadvantages of these choices, and discuss ethical and other special considerations of photographs.
Abstract: Despite calls for more visual methodologies in organizational research, the use of photographs remains sparse. Organizational research could benefit from the inclusion of photographs to track contemporary change processes in an organization and change processes over time, as well as to incorporate diverse voices within organizations, to name a few advantages. To further understanding, the authors identify researcher choices related to the use of photographs in organizational research, clarify the advantages and disadvantages of these choices, and discuss ethical and other special considerations of the use of photographs. They highlight several organizational areas of research, primarily related to the management discipline, that could benefit from the inclusion of photographs. Finally, the authors describe how they used photographs in a study of one organization and specifically how their intended research design with photographs changed over the course of the study as well as how photographs helped to de...
124 citations
Cites background or methods from "[In]visible [in]tangibles: Visual p..."
...Sometimes researchers are interested in the images selected and projected by a business organization, such as those included in annual reports (Davison, 2010; Dougherty & Kunda, 1990; Preston & Young, 2000)....
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...To clarify, some use of photographs is embedded in a field study (e.g., Heisley & Levy, 1991; Kobayashi et al., 2008; Venkatraman & Nelson, 2008); other photographic uses do not entail interaction with the field (e.g., Davison, 2010; Guthey & Jackson, 2005; Preston & Young, 2000)....
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...…example, photographs in annual reports have been interpreted to examine stable corporate customer orientations over time in marketing (Dougherty & Kunda, 1990), to study leadership traits (Davison, 2010), and to examine corporate global identity construction in accounting (Preston & Young, 2000)....
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...If archival images are being used, permission to reproduce will usually be required by journal editors (see Davison, 2010; Preston & Young, 2000)....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the cultural shift from professionalism to commercialism in the accounting profession based on an analysis of the promotional brochures used by the Ordre des comptables du Quebec, over the last forty years, to attract new members.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine the cultural shift from professionalism to commercialism in the accounting profession based on an analysis of the promotional brochures used by the Ordre des comptables agrees du Quebec, over the last forty years, to attract new members The specific objectives are to examine accountancy's cultural representations depicted in brochures and to establish whether the representations under study provide further insight into the nature of the cultural shift Drawing on the semiotic approach developed by Roland Barthes, our analysis is predicated on the idea that promotional brochures, though often simple in appearance, constitute complex representations that convey meaningful information about influential values and cultural change
97 citations
Cites background from "[In]visible [in]tangibles: Visual p..."
...…du Québec (OCAQ) over the last four decades.3 More than mere recruitment documents aimed at attracting candidates to the profession, the representations of accountants promoted through advertising material reflect and contribute to the development and transformation of culture (Davison, 2010)....
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...More than mere recruitment documents aimed at attracting candidates to the profession, the representations of accountants promoted through advertising material reflect and contribute to the development and transformation of culture (Davison, 2010)....
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...While the diversity of clothing styles can be interpreted as a sign of dynamism and creativity (Davison, 2010) and the use of sketched photos as a sign of originality, the predominance of traditional clothes such as suits acts as a reminder of Figure 10....
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...However, an emerging field of research has begun to examine the visual content of organizational reports to better understand corporate values (Davison, 2009, 2010, 2011), globalization (Preston and Young, 2000), the role of women and cultural diversity in organizational life (Benschop and…...
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...The fact that all of the photos were taken in a conversational context (in group or by telephone) underlines the social and interpersonal nature of CAs (Davison, 2010)....
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References
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22 Jul 1997TL;DR: Moore and Buttner as mentioned in this paper explored the increasingly popular choice of exiting the organization and creating one's own business by examining the occupational transitions of 129 highly accomplished women entrepreneurs from across the United States.
Abstract: Dorothy P. Moore and E. Holly Buttner, in their book ‘Women Entrepreneurs: Moving Beyond the Glass Ceiling,’ explore the increasingly popular choice of exiting the organization and creating one's own business by examining the occupational transitions of 129 highly accomplished women entrepreneurs from across the United States. Although not intended as a study of the new boundaryless career concept (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996), their book provides a detailed picture of how some individuals are crossing organizational and occupational boundaries and designing careers that better match their own values and needs.
329 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the association between CEO reputation and the quality of the firm's earnings and found that more reputed CEOs are associated with poorer earnings quality than are less-reputed CEOs.
Abstract: We examine the association between CEO reputation (proxied by the extent of press coverage) and the quality of the firm’s earnings (proxied by two accruals-based measures). We test three explanations for an association between these constructs: the efficient contracting hypothesis suggests that reputed CEOs are associated with good earnings quality, while the rent extraction and matching explanations argue that reputed CEOs are associated with poor earnings quality. Using a simultaneous equations system to capture the endogeneity of the constructs, we find (consistent with the rent extraction and matching arguments) that more reputed CEOs are associated with poorer earnings quality than are less-reputed CEOs. Further tests find little support for the rent extraction hypothesis. We conclude that the reason more reputed CEOs are associated with poor earnings quality firms is that such firms require more talented managers and, therefore, employ more reputed CEOs.
321 citations
TL;DR: The primacy of unmediated self-knowledge is attested by the fact that we distrust the exceptions until they can be reconciled with the unmediated as discussed by the authors, and we distrust exceptions only rarely in the case of beliefs about my own states of mind.
Abstract: I know, for the most part, what I think, want, and intend, and what my sensations are. In addition, I know a great deal about the world around me. I also sometimes know what goes on in other people's minds. Each of these three kinds of empirical knowledge has its distinctive characteristics. What I know about the contents of my own mind I generally know without investigation or appeal to evidence. There are exceptions, but the primacy of unmediated self-knowledge is attested by the fact that we distrust the exceptions until they can be reconciled with the unmediated. My knowledge of the world outside of myself, on the other hand, depends on the functioning of my sense organs, and this causal dependence on the senses makes my beliefs about the world of nature open to a sort of uncertainty that arises only rarely in the case of beliefs about my own states of mind. Many of my simple perceptions of what is going on in the world are not based on further evidence; my perceptual beliefs are simply caused directly by the events and objects around me. But my knowledge of the propositional contents of other minds is never immediate in this sense; I would have no access to what others think and value if I could not note their behaviour.
307 citations
TL;DR: The simplicity principle promises to serve as the starting point for the rational analysis of a wide range of cognitive processes, in Anderson's (1990, 1991a) sense, and provides a framework for integrating a widerange of existing psychological proposals.
Abstract: It is proposed that the cognitive system imposes patterns on the world according to a simplicity principle: Choose the pattern that provides the briefest representation of the available information. The simplicity principle is normatively justified-patterns that support simple representations provide good explanations and predictions on the basis of which the agent can make decisions and actions. Moreover, the simplicity principle appears to be consistent with empirical data from many psychological domains, including perception, similarity, learning, memory, and reasoning. Thus, the simplicity principle promises to serve as the starting point for the rational analysis of a wide range of cognitive processes, in Anderson's (1990, 1991a) sense. The simplicity principle also provides a framework for integrating a wide range of existing psychological proposals.
281 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the presence of variability within the chairman's address section of the annual report and find that companies with high variability and low readability will be associated with bad news and high levels of press coverage, this last variable being introduced into the readability literature for the first time.
Abstract: The purpose of the paper is to investigate the presence of variability within the chairman’s address section of the annual report. The coefficiency of variation (V) is used as a simple statistical measure, with calculations based on three Flesch‐based Reading Ease scores from 100‐word passages of 120 annual reports of Hong Kong public companies for 1994/5. Vs range from 4.83 percent to 89.64 percent and 106 companies have Vs greater than 10 percent. Discernible reading ease patterns are shown to be present according to chi‐square tests. Management propensity to obfuscate is introduced in the form of hypotheses, namely, companies with high variability and low readability will be associated with “bad news” and high levels of press coverage, this last variable being introduced into the readability literature for the first time. The obfuscation was accepted for companies with high financial press coverage.
279 citations