Pictures and the bottom line: The television epistemology of U.S. annual reports☆
TL;DR: The authors argue that the striking visual design that has characterized U.S. annual reports since the 1960s, including brilliant color pictures, gloss, and novelty formats, is a manifestation of the television epistemology that informs wide ranges of contemporary public discourse in America.
Abstract: In this analysis, we argue that the striking visual design that has characterized U.S. annual reports since the 1960s, including brilliant color pictures, gloss, and novelty formats, is a manifestation of the television epistemology that informs wide ranges of contemporary public discourse in America. Correspondingly, we contend that visual design in U.S. annual reports constitutes a form of rhetoric asserting the “truth claims” of the reports. Such truth claims relate not only to the values expounded in the text or projected in the pictures, but to those residing in the accounts themselves.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors highlight specific issues that arise in using content analysis to investigate intellectual capital (IC) disclosures and highlight the need for increased transparency in the categorisation of IC information, which can assist in the interpretation and comparison of findings across studies.
460 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focused on the chairman's narratives of the top 50 and bottom 50 listed UK companies ranked by percentage change in profit before taxation and examined whether companies with improving and declining performance report good and bad news in different ways.
Abstract: Accounting narratives are an increasingly important medium of financial communication. In particular, they play a crucial role in the corporate annual report, allowing company management to present annual performance to users in a readily accessible manner. Research suggests that such narratives are widely used and considered important in the investment decisions of private and institutional investors. However, accounting narratives are unaudited and thus may be subject to impression management. This paper focuses on the chairman's narratives of the top 50 and bottom 50 listed UK companies ranked by percentage change in profit before taxation. The research examines whether companies with improving and declining performance report good and bad news in different ways. The findings suggest that both groups of companies prefer to emphasise the positive aspects of their performance. In addition, both groups prefer to take credit for good news themselves, while blaming the external environment for bad ...
402 citations
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 theory of narcissism can be employed to analyze the dynamics of group and organizational behavior as mentioned in this paper, which sheds light on the dynamics underlying the legitimacy attributions made by organizational participants.
Abstract: The theory of narcissism can be employed usefully to analyze the dynamics of group and organizational behavior. Just as individuals seek to regulate their self-esteem through such ego-defense mechanisms as denial, rationalization, attributional egotism, sense of entitlement, and ego aggrandizement, which ameliorate anxiety, so too do groups and organizations. An understanding of the behaviors by which groups and organizations regulate self-esteem is important, because it sheds light on the dynamics underlying the legitimacy attributions made by organizational participants. In this article I enlarge and illustrate these arguments.
351 citations
TL;DR: In the past three decades, a desire to understand the processes of change within accounting, and the contribution made by accounting to broader societal and organizational change has stimulated a substantial body of historical research in accounting as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Over the past three decades, a desire to understand the processes of change within accounting, and the contribution made by accounting to broader societal and organizational change, has stimulated a substantial body of historical research in accounting. Labelled as the “new accounting history”, this diverse collection of methodological approaches addressing a wide range of problems has made possible the posing of new questions about accounting’s past. The understanding of what counts as accounting has broadened, a greater awareness of how accounting is intertwined in the social has emerged, voices from below have been allowed to speak, while accounting has been seen to be implicated in wider arenas, with networks of practices, principles and people constituting varieties of “accounting constellations”. The paper reviews the central contribution of Accounting, Organizations and Society to the emergence of the new accounting history, and suggests some directions in which this may develop in the future.
283 citations
Cites background from "Pictures and the bottom line: The t..."
...…of the German auditing profession and its formal establishment in 1931, and the role of the auditor in the German system of corporate governance Graves et al. (1996) 1940s to present USA Rhetoric of visual design Published annual reports As part of broader study, reviews sample of US companies…...
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...system of corporate governance Graves et al. (1996) 1940s to present USA Rhetoric of visual design Published annual reports As part of broader study, reviews sample of US companies and analyzes early use of...
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References
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Book•
01 Jan 1878
TL;DR: The Red River of the North basin of the Philippines was considered a part of the Louisiana Purchase by the United States Department of Commerce in the 1939 Census Atlas of the United Philippines as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: 1 Includes drainage basin of Red River of the North, not a part of any accession, but in the past sometimes considered a part of the Louisiana Purchase. i Includes Baker, Canton, Enderbury, Rowland, Jarvis, Johnston, and Midway Islands; and also certain other outlying islands (21 square miles). 3 Commonwealth of the Philippines, Commission of the Census; 1939 Census, Census Atlas of the Philippines. Source: Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.
10,650 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1936
TL;DR: One of the most important works of cultural theory ever written, Walter Benjamin's groundbreaking essay explores how the age of mass media means audiences can listen to or see a work of art repeatedly and what the troubling social and political implications of this are as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: One of the most important works of cultural theory ever written, Walter Benjamin's groundbreaking essay explores how the age of mass media means audiences can listen to or see a work of art repeatedly - and what the troubling social and political implications of this are. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
5,238 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1981
TL;DR: The Mismeasure of man was immediately hailed as a masterwork, the ringing answer to those who would classify people, rank them according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits, and yet the idea of innate limits-of biology as destiny-dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to The Bell Curve, whose arguments are here so effectively anticipated and thoroughly undermined by Stephen Jay Gould.
Abstract: When published in 1981, The Mismeasure of Man was immediately hailed as a masterwork, the ringing answer to those who would classify people, rank them according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits. And yet the idea of innate limits-of biology as destiny-dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to The Bell Curve, whose arguments are here so effectively anticipated and thoroughly undermined by Stephen Jay Gould. In this edition Dr. Gould has written a substantial new introduction telling how and why he wrote the book and tracing the subsequent history of the controversy on innateness right through The Bell Curve. Further, he has added five essays on questions of The Bell Curve in particular and on race, racism, and biological determinism in general. These additions strengthen the book's claim to be, as Leo J. Kamin of Princeton University has said, "a major contribution toward deflating pseudo-biological 'explanations' of our present social woes."
3,879 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1991TL;DR: In Pursuit of the Postmodern Theories of Consumer Culture Towards a Sociology of Postmodern Culture Postmodernism, Cultural Change and Social Practice as discussed by the authors, postmodernism and the Aestheticization of Everyday Life Lifestyle and Consumer Culture City Cultures and Postmodern Lifestyles
Abstract: Preface In Pursuit of the Postmodern Theories of Consumer Culture Towards a Sociology of Postmodern Culture Postmodernism, Cultural Change and Social Practice Postmodernism and the Aestheticization of Everyday Life Lifestyle and Consumer Culture City Cultures and Postmodern Lifestyles Postmodernism, Consumer Culture and Global Disorder Common Culture or Uncommon Cultures?
2,215 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1985
TL;DR: McCloskey as discussed by the authors describes how economic discourse employs metaphor, authority, symmetry, and other rhetorical means of persuasion, showing economists to be human persuaders and poets of the marketplace, even in their most technical and mathematical moods.
Abstract: In this revised second edition, Deirdre McCloskey demonstrates how economic discourse employs metaphor, authority, symmetry and other rhetorical means of persuasion. ""The Rhetoric of Economics"" shows economists to be human persuaders and poets of the marketplace, even in their most technical and mathematical moods. It is further enhanced by three new chapters and two new bibliographies.
2,068 citations