ABSTRACT

One of the prime purposes of accounting is to communicate and yet, to date, this fundamental aspect of the discipline has received relatively little attention. The Routledge Companion to Accounting Communication represents the first collection of contributions to focus on the power of communication in accounting.

The chapters have a shared aim of addressing the misconception that accounting is a purely technical, number-based discipline by highlighting the use of narrative, visual and technological methods to communicate accounting information. The contents comprise a mixture of reflective overview, stinging critique, technological exposition, clinical analysis and practical advice on topical areas of interest such as:

  • The miscommunication that preceded the global financial crisis
  • The failure of sustainability reporting
  • The development of XBRL
  • How to cut clutter

With an international coterie of contributors, including a communication theorist, a Big Four practitioner and accounting academics, this volume provides an eclectic array of expert analysis and reflection. The contributors reveal how accounting communications represent, or misrepresent, the financial affairs of entities, thus presenting a state-of-the-art assessment on each of the main facets of this important topic. As such, this book will be of interest to a wide range of readers, including: postgraduate students in management and accounting; established researchers in the fields of both accounting and communications; and accounting practitioners.

Part I: The Landscape  1. The Power of Accounting Communication  2. The Accounting Communication Research Landscape  3. An Historical Perspective from the Work of Chambers  Part II: A Variety of Media: Beyond Numbers  4. The Language of Corporate Annual Reports: A Critical Discourse Analysis  5. Visual Perspectives  6. The Role of Metaphor  7. Rhetoric and the Art of Memory  8. Accounting Narratives and Impression Management  Part III: Contemporary and Professional Issues  9. Phantasmagoria, Sustain-a-Babbling in Social and Environmental Reporting  10. Accounting Communication inside Organizations  11. Communication Apprehension and Accounting Education  12. Review of US Pedagogic Research and Debates on Writing in Accounting  13. Is XBRL a Killer App?  Part IV: Construction of Meaning  14. A Big Four Practitioner View  15. Argument, Audit and Principles-Based Accounting  16. A Critical Perspective