Into the woods of corporate fairytales and environmental reporting

Abstract

PurposeUsing a dialogic approach to narrative analysis through the lens of fairytale, this paper explores the shared construction of corporate environmental stories. The analysis provided aims to reveal the narrative messaging which is implicit in corporate reporting, to contrast corporate and stakeholder narratives and to bring attention to the ubiquity of storytelling in corporate communications.Design/methodology/approachThis paper examines a series of events in which a single case company plays the central role. The environmental section of the case company's sustainability report is examined through the lens of fairytale analysis. Next, two counter accounts are constructed which foreground multiple stakeholder accounts and retold as fairytales.FindingsThe dialogic nature of accounts plays a critical role in how stakeholders understand the environmental impacts of a company. Storytelling mechanisms have been used to shape the perspective and sympathies of the report reader in favour of the company. We use these same mechanisms to create two collective counter accounts which display different sympathies.Research limitations/implicationsThis research reveals how the narrative nature of corporate reports may be used to fabricate a particular perspective through storytelling. By doing so, it challenges the authority of the version of events provided by the company and gives voice to collective counter accounts which are shared by and can be disseminated to other stakeholders.Originality/valueThis paper provides a unique perspective to understanding corporate environmental reporting and the stories shared by and with external stakeholders by drawing from a novel link between fairytale, storytelling and counter accounting.

Análise De Narrativas E as Discussões Sobre Sustentabilidade Nas Organizações: Uma Meta-Síntese

“…O tema, ao ser debatido pelos autores, destaca principalmente as dimensões ambiental e social da sustentabilidade. Ainda assim, não é possível descartar que há também influência da dimensão econômica (Morrison & Lowe, 2021).…”

“…No que se refere a construção de sentido a partir de uma perspectiva individual sobre a sustentabilidade nas organizações, atribui-se destaque àqueles que são responsáveis pelas discussões acerca do tema, aos indivíduos que assumem a liderança das áreas de responsabilidade social corporativa, por exemplo (Gond, Cabantous & Krikorian, 2018), e que, de maneira geral, orientam-se pelo interesse de mitigar, ou anular os efeitos negativos das ações organizacionais (Matejek & Gössling, 2014;Morrison & Lowe, 2021;Rossoni et al, 2020;Zanoni et al, 2021). Estes o fazem pautando-se nos valores estabelecidos pela estrutura e cultura da estrutura em que estão, mas também o fazem pautando-se em seus valores, crenças e conhecimento (Dieleman & Koning, 2020).…”

“…Alguns exemplos: a resistência dos moradores do Nepal com as organizações que buscam lidar com a sustentabilidade de maneira semelhante em países desenvolvidos e em desenvolvimento (Dziubaniuk, Ivanova-Gongne & Berdysheva, 2021); e moradores locais que apoiam as ações da organização do setor de psicultura, mesmo que essas gerem danos, enquanto outros são contra (Morrison & Lowe, 2021). As tentativas de mudança promovidas por alguns, e a resistências de outros, provocam um estado de tensão no ambiente organizacional (Lai, Melloni & Stacchezzini, 2018).…”

Impact valuations in social finance: emic and polyvocal stakeholder accounts

“…Accounting literature has drawn attention to another sort of plurality: that of stakeholders' voices. Examples are dialogic/polylogic (Brown, 2009;Brown and Dillard, 2015;Kingston et al, 2020;Morrison and Lowe, 2021), heteroglossic (Dillard and Roslender, 2011) or agonistic pluralism (Brown and Dillard, 2013). These stand in opposition to univocal accounts that assume a single truth or a single viewpointusually that of financial markets.…”

“…In practice, polyvocal accounts take the form of a kind of parallel plurality through shadow or counter-accounts (e.g. Laine and Vinnari, 2017; Morrison and Lowe, 2021). Scholars have suggested that it may be possible for accounting devices, reports, accounts, etc., to be polyvocal, however the few empirical studies that have examined the production of such accounts have found that a polyvocal account does not emerge easily from stakeholder engagement (e.g.…”