On the ideological role of employee reporting

This paper analyzes narrative employee reporting and problematizes corporate talk about employees. Annual and CSR reports of the 25 biggest Finnish companies from the year 2008 are investigated, and the CEO letters and the special sections addressing employee-related issues are analyzed. The study employs the concept of ideological strategies as developed by Eagleton (1991/2007) to analyze the ideologies underlying employee reporting. The analysis shows that corporate disclosure, though relatively developed in some areas, still paints a partial picture of people within companies. Employees are presented in a fairly narrow, mechanistic manner as efficiently aiming at a kind of development and growth of [only] instrumental value to companies, and not as complex, individual human beings possessing a variety of qualities and needs. The study reveals how corporate talk presents the relationship between companies and labor according to a unitarist perception. Particularly, the study shows how corporate talk works to naturalize and universalize this ideological claim and, hence, hide its contingent nature. The study adds to an increasing body of accounting literature using interpretive and critical approaches to analyze corporate disclosures and to study the less developed area of narrative employee reporting. The study also highlights the possible advantages of social accounting.

► Narrative employee reporting and the corporate talk about employees is analyzed and problematized.
► Ideological strategies as categorized by Eagleton (1991) are used to analyze the ideologies underlying employee reporting.
► The analysis shows that corporate disclosure paints a partial picture of people within companies; people are presented in a fairly narrow, mechanistic manner of [only] instrumental value to companies.