The use of made-up users

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to report the outcome of an interdisciplinary discussion on the concepts of profit and profitability and various ways in which we could potentially problematize these concepts. It is our hope that a much greater attention or reconsideration of the problematization of profit and related accounting numbers will be fostered in part by the exchanges we include here.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts an interdisciplinary discussion approach and brings into conversation ideas and views of several scholars on problematizing profit and profitability in various contexts and explores potential implications of such problematization.FindingsProfit and profitability measures make invisible the collective endeavour of people who work hard (backstage) to achieve a desired profit level for a division and/or an organization. Profit tends to preclude the social process of debate around contradictions among the ends and means of collective activity. An inherent message that we can discern from our contributors is the typical failure of managers to appreciate the value of critical theory and interpretive research for them. Practitioners and positivist researchers seem to be so influenced by neo-liberal economic ideas that organizations are distrusted and at times reviled in their attachment to profit.Research limitations/implicationsProblematizing opens-up the potential for interesting and significant theoretical insights. A much greater pragmatic and theoretical reconsideration of profit and profitability will be fostered by the exchanges we include here.Originality/valueIn setting out a future research agenda, this paper fosters theoretical and methodological pluralism in the research community focussing on problematizing profit and profitability in various settings. The discussion perspectives offered in this paper provides not only a basis for further research in this critical area of discourse and regulation on the role and status of profit and profitability but also emancipatory potential for practitioners (to be reflective of their practices and their undesired consequences of such practices) whose overarching focus is on these accounting numbers.

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“…Accounting profit has come to be realized through 'made up futures' for 'made up users' Robson and Young, 2009;Stenka and Jaworska, 2019).…”

Section: An Alignment Of Interests and Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Problematizing profit and profitability: discussions

Lowe

Nama

Bryer

et al. 2020

AAAJ

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“…This may however lead to effort being expended in audits instead of in core operations (Olson et al, 2001). Further, it seems that not only the managers but also the key stakeholders can see the functionality and meanings in accounting communication, even if other users such as the general public do not (Ahrens and Chapman, 2007;Haustein et al, 2019;Stenka and Jaworska, 2019;van Helden and Reichard, 2019). The perceptions of performance and reputation come from many sources, so consistent (voluntary) financial reporting practices, such as disclosure of additional information (in financial statement notes) about the potential and the risks related to the key intangible assets of the organization might be helpful.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reputation and financial reporting in Finnish public organizations

Rautiainen

Luoma‐aho

2021

JPBAFM

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PurposeThis article analyzes the links between financial reports and reputation in the context of Finnish public sector organizations. In general, the paper discusses the accounting treatment of intangible and tangible assets and the quality and relevance of public sector financial reporting.Design/methodology/approachFor data, we combine three data sets: financial statement information of eight anonymous Finnish public organizations, the results of a reputation survey among their key stakeholders (N = 914) and a sample of the social media sentiment around the organizations.FindingsOur findings suggest that a decrease in spending and, surprisingly in the nonprofit sector, an increase in the surplus, indicate better perceived financial performance. An increase in surplus is positively linked with the reputational factors, for example, trust. However, disclosing excessive amounts of information, for example, in financial reporting seems to contribute to negative discussions on social media.Practical implicationsWe highlight the importance of managing intangibles, including those not recognized in the balance sheet, such as reputation. We present three propositions with potential managerial relevance.Originality/valueDespite the considerable amount of financial information disclosed by public sector organizations, few studies have analyzed its relevance or connection to reputation. This first-of-a-kind paper combines intangible and tangible assets by analyzing how financial data and intangible reputation are linked in the public sector accounting context. Six reputational factors were discovered, and financial performance was found to correlate with trust in the public sector.

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“…That said, there have been studies in this discipline that use the method or related approaches (e.g. O’Reilly and Reed, 2010; Stenka and Jaworska, 2019). Indeed, Pollach (2012) provides an insightful overview of the method for organizational scholars, a literature review of its use in organization studies, along with a demonstration example using a text corpus of company letters to shareholders.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

FromadministratortoCEO: Exploring changing representations of hierarchy and prestige in a diachronic corpus of academic management writing

Mautner

Learmonth

2019

Discourse & Communication

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We explore the lexical choices made by authors published in Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ), a major academic journal in business and management studies. We do so via a corpus constructed from all the articles published in ASQ from its first publication in 1956 up until the end of 2018. Specifically, our focus is on lexical items that represent social actors. Our findings suggest that, compared with earlier work, recent articles typically ascribe greater status and prestige to organizational elites. Relatively contemporary papers are also more likely to use language that obfuscates or ignores unpalatable aspects of organizational life, such as power asymmetries, hierarchy and control through identity regulation. We suggest that these changes in word choices can be understood to reflect a wider trend towards neo-liberal rhetoric – a rhetoric increasingly pervading contemporary social life more generally.

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The use of made-up users

Cited by 32 publications

References 103 publications

Problematizing profit and profitability: discussions

Problematizing profit and profitability: discussions

Reputation and financial reporting in Finnish public organizations

FromadministratortoCEO: Exploring changing representations of hierarchy and prestige in a diachronic corpus of academic management writing

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