تحلیل کیفیت، مقصود و ذیحسابی مکاتبات و گزارش سازمانی: جهاتی برای تحقیق آتی

The aim of this paper is to promote further research that analyzes the quality, meaning and accountability of organizational reporting and corporate communication. These issues are critical if accounting is to satisfy its role by providing information to the public. In this paper, we conclude this special issue by reiterating the potential for research that takes interpretive and qualitative approaches, in their various guises, to the study of organizational reporting and communication. We briefly outline this growing field of research and then highlight the areas where we believe future research is needed. In doing so, we draw on Thompson's (1990) tripartite framework. This paper provides an overview of some of the avenues for future research, which will hopefully encourage and guide researchers in this area.

This paper concludes this special issue of Accounting Forum focused on the quality, meaning and accountability of organizational reporting and communication. While recognizing the contribution to this field of study made by each paper, it is argued that further research could benefit from utilizing the insights from interpretive and qualitative methodologies. These methodologies provide theoretical structures to further analyze the quality, meaning and accountability implicit in organizational reporting and communication. We argue for a move away from the ‘safety’ of quantitative based content analysis toward the more unfamiliar territory of interpretive and qualitative methodologies (e.g., narrative, rhetorical, visual and discursive methods). These approaches have the potential to improve our understanding of organizational communication and its role in accountability processes. To achieve these aims, this paper is structured as follows. First, we introduce our argument that interpretivist and qualitative approaches are needed to analyze organizational reporting and communication. The growing accounting literature in this area is then discussed to highlight previous research on business communication and reporting. Third, this concluding paper provides an overview of some future potential research areas. Some final comments conclude the paper.

This special issue and the papers within contribute to knowledge of organizational reporting and communication. Several papers highlight the potential for different interpretive and qualitative analyses to contribute to knowledge of organizational reporting and communication. However, in returning here to the range of different areas where these studies would be beneficial above, we reassert our opening position that more studies analyzing the notions of meaning, quality and accountability in organizational reporting and communication are needed because an examination of how organizational reporting and communication is constructed and its potential consequences (both intended and unintended) remains underdeveloped. Indeed, we note that all of the papers in this special issue focus on the construction of the message and, therefore, are situated in the second domain of Thompson's framework. While the paper by Higgins and Walker focuses on the potential persuasive effects of the message on the consumer, they concentrate on the message itself rather than on the consumers of the message. While further studies concentrating on the message are important, when investigating notions such as intentionality for example, it will be necessary to go beyond the message to include its production and consumption (Hardy, 2011). We would argue that accounting researchers have tended to favor the message in analyses of organizational reporting and communication and the comfort that this documentation analysis affords. While continuing this research, we must also move beyond a concentration on the message itself to undertake research that is situated in the first and third domains of Thompson's tripartite framework, and ideally, research that analyzes instances of organizational reporting and communication across the entire process from the production and transmission of the message to the reception and appropriation of the message. To understand organizational reporting and communication, its meanings and effects, we must have more diverse and holistic accounts and analyses. We hope that those who are reading this special issue will contribute to the field in which the papers discussed within are located and will contribute to the growing literature analyzing the quality, meaning and accountability of organizational reporting and communication.