Impression Management: Developing and Illustrating a Scheme of Analysis for Narrative Disclosures - A Methodological Note

By Niamh M. Brennan, Encarna Guillamón Saorín, A. Pierce. 2008

256 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Purpose - This paper develops a holistic measure for impression management and for bias introduced into corporate narratives as a result of impression management.Design/Methodology/Approach - Prior research on the seven impression management methods in the literature is summarised. Four of the less-researched methods are described in detail, and are illustrated with examples from UK Annual Results' Press Releases (ARPRs). A method of computing a holistic composite impression management score based on these four impression management methods is developed, based on both quantitative and qualitative data in corporate narrative disclosures. A bias score is devised to capture the extent to which impression management introduces bias into corporate narratives. An example of the application of the composite impression management score and bias score methodology is provided.Findings - While not amounting to systematic evidence, the 21 illustrative examples suggest that impression management is pervasive in corporate financial communications using multiple impression management methods, such that positive information is exaggerated, while negative information is either ignored or is underplayed.Originality/Value - Four impression management methods are described in detail, illustrated by 21 examples. These four methods are examined together. New impression management methods are studied in this paper for the first time. This paper extends prior impression management measures in two ways. First, a composite impression management score based on four impression management techniques is articulated. Second, the composite impression management score methodology is extended to capture a measure for bias. This is the first time outside the US that narrative disclosures in press releases have been studied.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Education, Marketing

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/491a2514e721a7ab478eda86bdfca7942ca11b24

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In Economics and Econometrics

1. Martin Walker
2. Ingrid E. Fisher
3. Margaret R. Garnsey
4. Alpa Dhanani
5. Mark E. Hughes
6. Ciaran Connolly
7. G. Melloni

In Education

1. Ingrid E. Fisher
2. Margaret R. Garnsey
3. Alpa Dhanani
4. Mark E. Hughes
5. Ciaran Connolly
6. G. Melloni

In Marketing

1. Ingrid E. Fisher
2. Margaret R. Garnsey
3. Alpa Dhanani
4. Mark E. Hughes
5. Ciaran Connolly
6. G. Melloni

Citations in the corpus

• Bias in the tone of forward‐looking narratives (2010, background): “In particular, in calculating a standardised measure of tone a number of previous content analysis studies deflate by the sum of positive and negative keywords but not by neutral keywords (e.g. Brennan et al., 2008; Citron et al., 2008; Henry, 2008).”
• Natural Language Processing in Accounting, Auditing and Finance: A Synthesis of the Literature with a Roadmap for Future Research (2016, methodology): “The FOG index, the FRE formula, and the plain English rule were used most often to assess narrative text in the accounting, audit and finance literature (Brennan et al., 2009; Loughran & McDonald, 2010).”
• The readability of integrated reports (2017, background): “…are various approaches to impression management in corporate reporting, with the majority of these focussed on ways to hide negative information and promote positive information (Brennan et al., 2009; Maas, Schaltegger, & Crutzen, 2016; Melloni et al., 2017; Stacchezzini, Melloni, & Lai, 2016).”
• Discharging not-for-profit accountability: UK charities and public discourse (2012, methodology): “The for-profit literature recognizes multiple methods of impression management including concealment and attribution (Courtis, 1998; Clatworthy and Jones, 2006; Brennan et al., 2009; Merkl-Davies et al., 2011).”
• Intellectual capital disclosure in integrated reporting: an impression management analysis (2015, methodology): “Dumay and Cai (2014) call for research analysing the ICD offered in the IR; the current study is an attempt to respond to this call and draws on the impression management (IM) framework (Brennan et al., 2009; Cho et al., 2010) to determine whether firms offer ICD to advance their corporate image, in”