2012 Awards for Excellence
Article Type: 2012 Awards for Excellence From: Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Volume 26, Issue 1
Mary Parker Follett Award
Named in memory of a pioneering woman in the field of management and accountability literature, who was international and interdisciplinary in her focus.
The following article was selected for this year's Outstanding Paper Award for Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
``Impression management and retrospective sense-making in corporate narratives: a social psychology perspective''
Doris M. Merkl-DaviesBangor University, Bangor, UKNiamh M. BrennanUniversity College Dublin, Dublin, IrelandStuart J. McLeayUniversity of Sussex, Brighton, UK
Purpose - Prior accounting research views impression management predominantly though the lens of economics. Drawing on social psychology research, this paper seeks to provide a complementary perspective on corporate annual narrative reporting as characterised by conditions of ``ex post accountability''. These give rise to impression management resulting from the managerial anticipation of the feedback effects of information and/or to managerial sense-making by means of the retrospective framing of organisational outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach - A content analysis approach pioneered by psychology research is used, which is based on the psychological dimension of word use, to investigate the chairmen's statements of 93 UK listed companies.
Findings - Results suggest that firms do not use chairmen's statements to create an impression at variance with an overall reading of the annual report. It was found that negative organisational outcomes prompt managers to engage in retrospective sense-making, rather than to present a public image of organisational performance inconsistent with the view internally held by management (self-presentational dissimulation). Further, managers of large firms use chairmen's statements to portray an accurate (i.e. consistent with an overall reading of the annual report), albeit favourable, image of the firm and of organisational outcomes (i.e. impression management by means of enhancement).
Originality/value - The approach makes it possible to investigate three complementary scenarios of managerial corporate annual reporting behaviour: self-presentational dissimulation, impression management by means of enhancement, and retrospective sense-making.
Keywords Annual reports, Chairmen, Social psychology
This article originally appeared in Volume 24 Number 3, 2011, pp. 315-44,Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
The following articles were selected for this year's Highly Commended Award
``Justification and accounting: applying sociology of worth to accounting research''
Marcia AnnisetteAlan J. Richardson
This article originally appeared in Volume 24 Number 2, 2011, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
``Investigating interdisciplinary translations: the influence of Pierre Bourdieu on accounting literature''
Bertrand MalschYves GendronFrédérique Grazzini
This article originally appeared in Volume 24 Number 2, 2011, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
``The emergence and change of management accounting routines''
Martijn van der Steen
This article originally appeared in Volume 24 Number 4, 2011, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
Outstanding Reviewer
Professor Richard LaughlinUniversity of London, UK
