IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/accfor/v35y2011i2p75-89.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The nature, use and impression management of graphs in social and environmental accounting

Author

Listed:
  • Michael John Jones

Abstract

Social and environmental reports are growing in popularity. They are voluntary, unregulated documents. This study investigates graph usage in social and environmental reports. The findings show that graphs are widely used. Key managerial preferences are shown to be air pollution, waste output, energy usage and employees. High profile industrial sectors, particularly the extractive industry, used graphs the most. There was clear evidence of impression management in graph usage. In terms of trends selected and in the distortion of those trends, there was an overwhelming portrayal of good rather than bad news. Companies in high impact industries tended to present relatively more good news than bad news in graphs and distort graphs relatively more favourably than those in low impact companies. This was particularly true for one high impact industry, the extractive industry. Companies are not, therefore, using graphs properly to enhance the communicative effectiveness of their corporate social and environmental disclosures.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael John Jones, 2011. "The nature, use and impression management of graphs in social and environmental accounting," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(2), pages 75-89, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:accfor:v:35:y:2011:i:2:p:75-89
    DOI: 10.1016/j.accfor.2011.03.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1016/j.accfor.2011.03.002
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.accfor.2011.03.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Laura Bini & Francesco Giunta & Rebecca Miccini & Lorenzo Simoni, 2023. "Corporate governance quality and non-financial KPI disclosure comparability: UK evidence," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 27(1), pages 43-74, March.
    2. Corrigan, Lawrence T., 2018. "Budget making: The theatrical presentation of accounting discourse," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 12-32.
    3. Isabel‐María García‐Sánchez & Cristina‐Andrea Araújo‐Bernardo, 2020. "What colour is the corporate social responsibility report? Structural visual rhetoric, impression management strategies, and stakeholder engagement," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(2), pages 1117-1142, March.
    4. Claudia Arena & Saverio Bozzolan & Giovanna Michelon, 2015. "Environmental Reporting: Transparency to Stakeholders or Stakeholder Manipulation? An Analysis of Disclosure Tone and the Role of the Board of Directors," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(6), pages 346-361, November.
    5. Hrasky, Sue, 2012. "Visual disclosure strategies adopted by more and less sustainability-driven companies," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 154-165.
    6. Kanbaty, Majid & Hellmann, Andreas & He, Liyu, 2020. "Infographics in corporate sustainability reports: Providing useful information or used for impression management?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    7. Mäkelä, Marileena, 2017. "Environmental impacts and aspects in the forest industry: What kind of picture do corporate environmental reports provide?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 178-191.
    8. Sidney J. Gray & Niclas Hellman & Mariya N. Ivanova, 2019. "Extractive Industries Reporting: A Review of Accounting Challenges and the Research Literature," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 55(1), pages 42-91, March.
    9. Tuvana Cüre & Emel Esen & Arzu Özsözgün Çalışkan, 2020. "Impression Management in Graphical Representation of Economic, Social, and Environmental Issues: An Empirical Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-16, January.
    10. Grougiou, Vassiliki & Leventis, Stergios & Dedoulis, Emmanouil & Owusu-Ansah, Stephen, 2014. "Corporate social responsibility and earnings management in U.S. banks," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 155-169.
    11. Shaio Yan Huang & Tung-Hsien Wu & An-An Chiu & David C. Yen, 2015. "Measurements of mislead threshold of company graph distortion," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 17(5), pages 1111-1132, October.
    12. García-Sánchez, Isabel-María & Suárez-Fernández, Oscar & Martínez-Ferrero, Jennifer, 2019. "Female directors and impression management in sustainability reporting," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 359-374.
    13. Konstantinos Evangelinos & Stefanos Fotiadis & Antonis Skouloudis & Nadeem Khan & Foteini Konstandakopoulou & Ioannis Nikolaou & Shaun Lundy, 2018. "Occupational health and safety disclosures in sustainability reports: An overview of trends among corporate leaders," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(5), pages 961-970, September.
    14. Hazianti Abdul Halim, 2016. "Visual Representations Strategies in Chairperson’s Statement in Malaysia: An Analysis of Impression Management," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 6(12), pages 245-255, December.
    15. Comyns, Breeda & Figge, Frank & Hahn, Tobias & Barkemeyer, Ralf, 2013. "Sustainability reporting: The role of “Search”, “Experience” and “Credence” information," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 231-243.
    16. Cornelia Beck & Geoffrey Frost & Stewart Jones, 2018. "CSR disclosure and financial performance revisited: A cross-country analysis," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 43(4), pages 517-537, November.
    17. Chaidali, Panagioula (Penny) & Jones, Michael John, 2017. "It’s a matter of trust: Exploring the perceptions of Integrated Reporting preparers," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-20.
    18. Perkiss, Stephanie & Bernardi, Cristiana & Dumay, John & Haslam, Jim, 2021. "A sticky chocolate problem: Impression management and counter accounts in the shaping of corporate image," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    19. Stefanos Fotiadis & Konstantinos I. Evangelinos & Foteini Konstantakopoulou & Ioannis E. Nikolaou, 2023. "Assessing CSR Reports of Top UK Construction Companies: The Case of Occupational Health and Safety Disclosures," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-32, April.
    20. Tiziana De Cristofaro & Domenico Raucci, 2022. "Rise and Fall of the Materiality Matrix: Lessons from a Missed Takeoff," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-25, December.
    21. Renato Camodeca & Alex Almici & Umberto Sagliaschi, 2018. "Sustainability Disclosure in Integrated Reporting: Does It Matter to Investors? A Cheap Talk Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-34, November.
    22. Karin Eberhard, 2023. "The effects of visualization on judgment and decision-making: a systematic literature review," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 73(1), pages 167-214, February.
    23. Jennifer Martínez‐Ferrero & Oscar Suárez‐Fernández & Isabel‐María García‐Sánchez, 2019. "Obfuscation versus enhancement as corporate social responsibility disclosure strategies," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(2), pages 468-480, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:accfor:v:35:y:2011:i:2:p:75-89. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/racc .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.