Green meaning a discourse analysis of corporate communication

1、green meaning: a discourse analysis of corporate communicationlisapowelluniversity of south australiadivision of businessschool of commerce telephone:+61 8 830 20292fax: +61 8 830 20992email: lisa.p.augreen meaning: a discourse analysis of corporate communicationabstractpurpose the pur

2、pose of the paper is to identify and understand the messages communicated by a conservation organisation throughout a period of significant organisational change. design/methodology/approach discourse analysis of the environmental disclosures made by a single conservation organisation in a variety o

3、f media throughout a period of rapid growth. findings throughout the period of investigation, the prioritisation of environmental disclosures remained high but as the organisation approached listing on the australian stock exchange (asx) there appeared to be an increased business-focus in the disclo

4、sures.research limitations/implications the investigation of data from a broad range of sources including non-text based disclosures and the utilisation of techniques of discourse analysis within a unique setting has provided the opportunity to develop a thorough understanding of the messages and me

5、anings of a unique conservation organisation. implications for future research include the potential for investigation of the underling motivations and rationales for the disclosures made. practical implications the application of qualitative research techniques to a broad range of environmental dat

6、a generated by an organisation over time has demonstrated the potential for further utilisation of these techniques with the aim of improving broader knowledge and understanding of the overall process of environmental disclosure. originality/value exploration of the disclosures made by an organisati

7、on operating within the conservation industry throughout a period of significant structural change. utilisation of research techniques not commonly adopted in research of environmental disclosures. keywords environmental disclosure, discourse analysis.paper type research paper. iintroductiondespite

8、a vast array of research undertaken into the disclosure of environmental information over the past two decades (mathews 1997; gray, r. 2002; parker 2005) several areas of neglected research interest remain evident. two such areas identified by (parker 2005) are the collection and interpretation of e

9、nvironmental disclosure information using qualitative research techniques and the exploration of disclosure media other than the annual report. the purpose of this paper therefore is to add to the current literature on environmental disclosures by utilising a method of investigation not commonly use

10、d in the area to analyse a wide range of voluntary environmental disclosures made by a particular conservation organisation over a period of time across a variety of different mediathe techniques of analysis applied in this paper are those of discourse analysis, involving close reading and reflectio

11、n on the disclosures made, and the development of impressions from the use of language, images, and technical content presented across a variety of reporting media. the findings reveal an increase in the business-orientation adopted in the disclosures over time and a shift in the primary audience to

12、 whom they were directed. evidence from prior research into the nature and content of corporate environmental disclosures is presented in the following section. in the next section the research methods undertaken in this paper are presented, followed by the empirical evidence emerging from the inves

13、tigation undertaken for this paper. in the final section are presented in the fourth section and the summary and conclusions. revisiting environmental disclosure literaturemany prior studies investigating environmental disclosure have focused only on the annual report (freedman & jaggi 1982; wiseman

14、 1982; guthrie & parker 1989, 1990; tinker, lehman & neimark 1991; patten 1992; vyakarnam 1992; tilt 1994; gamble et al. 1995; gibson & guthrie 1995; gray, r, kouhy & lavers 1995a; niskala & pretes 1995; patten 1995; deegan & gordon 1996; neu, warsame & pedwell 1998). the rationale for the frequent

15、use of the annual report in prior environmental disclosure research is supported by claims that it is a common source of environmental information and is the most actively sought source of information by australian environmental groups (tilt 1994). in addition, it is a major source of information fo

16、r decision making purposes by various user groups (deegan & rankin 1997). the growing proportion of environmental information appearing in media other than the annual report (e.g. websites and stand alone reports) has generated interest in capturing these alternative sources of corporate communicati

17、on (see parker 2005). it appears, as stated originally by roberts (1991, p. 63) and reproduced in unerman (2000, p. 670), that focusing on the annual report alone may produce a somewhat incomplete picture of disclosure practices. researchers that have undertaken research on documents other than the

18、annual report include zeghal and ahmed (1990) and unerman (2000). zeghal and ahmed (1990) investigated social information disclosure via staff newspapers, press releases, newspapers, television and radio advertising and company brochures. they found the disclosure of environmental information by can

19、adian petroleum companies to be more common in brochures than the annual report. unerman (2000) examined a wide range of corporate reports from shell ltd using content analysis and found that focusing solely on the annual report may result in a less than thorough understanding of the range and conte

20、nt of the social responsibility practices undertaken by the organisation. he found greater social responsibility disclosures in sources other than the annual report and that the quality of reporting was not consistent between documents. unermans study provided justification for the widening of corpo

21、rate reports used as input for future studies of content analysis. content analysis, as a method of textual analysis has contributed significantly to the establishment of broad understandings of the nature and content of corporate environmental disclosures by providing comparative positions and tren

22、ds in reporting (yongvanich & guthrie 2005). content analysis of environmental disclosures has been a popular method of quantitative data analysis in prior studies of environmental disclosures comprising 19% of papers published in the journals accounting, auditing & accountability, accounting forum,

23、 critical perspectives on accounting and accounting, organizations and society between 1988 and 2003 (parker 2005). the popularity of this method of analysis stems from the utilitarian aspect of the research that allows for the quantitative analysis of large numbers of texts in terms of what words o

24、r concepts are actually used or implied in the texts (carley 1993). the problem with quantitative content analysis relates to the decontextualisation of the information that occurs in order to facilitate summarisation and interpretation of large quantities of information inconsistent with the contem

25、plation of meaning attached to the information (carley 1993; morgan 1993). such approaches tend to favour techniques of deductive reasoning (denzin & lincoln 1998, p. 8-9) rather than allow for the establishment of new reasonings. common to studies of content analysis is the belief that the greater

26、the quantity of environmental disclosures the more significant those disclosures are to the organisation (krippendorff 1980; gray, r, kouhy & lavers 1995b; deegan & rankin 1996; neu, warsame & pedwell 1998 as cited in unerman 2002, p. 675). such studies have confirmed an increase in the quantity of

27、environmental disclosure over time, but research indicates that environmental disclosures do not necessarily correlate with environmental performance and where a relationship was found between the two they appeared to be inversely related (patten 2002). several studies reported no significant relati

28、onship between actual performance and levels of disclosure in relation to environmental issues (ingram & frazier 1980; freedman & jaggi 1982; wiseman 1982 as cited in ullmann, 1985). a limitation of these studies is that they may overlook some of the subtleties of impression management such as the s

29、pecific communication strategies used (neu, warsame & pedwell 1998, p. 275). this study attempts to overcome such problems by looking closely at a wide range of disclosure media and investigating them using techniques of qualitative analysis thereby retaining the subtleties of the information disclo

30、sed. the idea that an organisation is separate from its surroundings and the activities operating within it are unified and cohesive is inconsistent with reality (llewellyn 1994). effective maintenance of the boundaries of an organisation is essential for the establishment and maintenance of organis

31、ational identity in both physical and conceptual terms (llewellyn 1994, p. 10) and the maintenance of stability within the organisation (llewellyn 1994, p. 9). the management of boundaries between the organisation and external parties i.e. establishing thresholds (llewellyn 1994, p. 4) and managing

32、the activities within the organisation in the reproduction of binding structures (llewellyn 1994, p. 4) are key to reducing uncertainty and essential for the long-term survival of an organisation. understanding these features of organisational uncertainty appear key to understanding internal decisio

33、n processes that may influence the disclosure of environmental information and assist with the interpretation of meaning extending from those disclosures. the site chosen for investigation had, at the commencement of data collection, recently listed on the australian stock exchange (asx). access to

34、the organisation was therefore timely. the public listing of an organisation is a major event in terms of organisational growth and change. identifying and describing the process of change experienced by the organisation provided the researcher the opportunity to gain additional insight into the mot

35、ivating factors influencing the production of environmental information. research methodsenvironmental disclosures definedthe organisation investigated in this study was a conservation organisation. it was defined for the purposes of the study as one whose primary objective was the conservation and

36、preservation of native fauna and flora. the primary objectives and actions of conservation organisations are, by definition, intrinsically linked to the natural environment (i.e. the preservation of native flora and fauna). all of the disclosures made by a conservation organisation therefore could b

37、e described as environmental. the purpose of those disclosures would be to communicate the impact of the organisation on the natural environment whilst pursuing economic and environmental objectives. in contrast to environmental disclosures made by organisations operating in traditional (non-environ

38、mental) industries, environmental disclosures by a conservation organisation are expected to communicate to external stakeholders core aspects of organisational performance as well as their impacts on the natural environment. consideration of the nature and purpose of environmental disclosures made

39、by a conservation organisation has led to the adoption of a broad definition of the term environmental disclosure in this study. broadly it is defined as the process of communicating the environmental objectives, actions, and achievements of an organisation to external stakeholders and would include

40、 a statement of the organisations environmental goals, the environmental activities taken to achieve those goals and the outcome or impact of implementing or undertaking those environmental activities. as a result of the alignment of the environmental and economic objectives of an organisation it is

41、 anticipated that the information identified by this definition will convey indications of not only an organisations environmental performance but also its overall economic well being.discourse analysisdiscourse is a connected set of statements, concepts, terms and expressions which constitute a way

42、 of talking and writing about a particular issue thus framing the way that people understand and act with respect to such an issue (watson cited in alvesson & karreman 2000, p.113) . analysis of discourse, by consideration of the mechanisms by which language is presented in text or other media, is t

43、herefore one way of discovering the means by which language has been used to construct accounts or versions of the social world (elliot 1996) page 66. what is of interest to the researcher in this study, is the use of language to convey messages to the audience in a conservation organisation over ti

44、me. the construction, rather than discovery of meaning that may emerge from the disclosures made may add to the current understanding of the communication of environmental disclosure in the context of a conservation organisation. disclosures analyseda wide variety of external disclosures produced by

45、 the organisation during the period 19962001 were examined by the researcher. these documents included prospectuses, annual reports, investment brochures, newsletters and website, together with information conveyed to stakeholders in guided walks. prospectuses were prepared and issued by the organis

46、ation as a means of raising funds via share issues. proceeds of such share issues were used to finance the operations of the organisation including the acquisition and establishment of conservation sanctuaries. in this investigation, five prospectuses issued between 1996 and 2000 were examined. the

47、2000 prospectus, a listing prospectus, raised funds with the purpose and intent of listing as a public company on the asx in may 2000. the researcher examined four annual reports prepared by the organisation for the years ended 30 june 1998 to 2001. the annual reports 1998 and 1999 preceded listing

48、on the asx and those for 2000 and 2001 were issued subsequent. during 2000 and 2001 four brochures were prepared voluntarily by the organisation to increase investment in the organisation. the target audience for each brochure varied depending on the purpose for which it was issued. brochure 1, issu

49、ed in the period immediately prior to listing on the asx, was intended to entice new shareholders to purchase shares in the organisation. brochure 2, published soon after listing, sought to encourage demand for shares via the stock exchange in order to maintain or boost the market share-price. broch

50、ures 3 and 4 were issued to encourage existing shareholders to take up options issued when listing shares were purchased. they were posted to option holders in february and may 2001 respectively with an accompanying letter to shareholders. the corporate website provided commercial, investment and ed

51、ucative information to customers and current and potential shareholders. the website was closely examined on two specific occasions during the period of investigation; in october 2000, after listing on the asx but prior to the change in company management; and again in february 2002, after the organ

52、isation announced plans for a restructure. newsletters prepared by the organisation provided the primary means of regular shareholder communication. they provided updates on the corporations progress and contained a mixture of news, ideas, and information. ten newsletters, issued between october 199

53、9 and february 2002 were examined. guided walks were a further source of environmental disclosure for existing and potential shareholders and other visitors to the sanctuaries. the walks were a major source of revenue and investment resources for the organisation. manuals were produced in 2000 and 2

54、001 for use as a resource by guides to inform them of the flora and fauna in the sanctuary and other information considered important to pass on to customers. the manuals were analysed to ascertain the form and content of information that form the basis of the guided walks. techniques for analysiste

55、chniques of discourse analysis were applied to the non-financial voluntary information disclosed by the organisation as a means of ascertaining the specific character and form of the environmental disclosures made and the implicit and explicit meanings communicated to the reader. the investigation i

56、nvolved the examination and comparison of the nature, configuration and placement of information (narrative and non-narrative); consideration of the purpose, appearance and tone of language; identification of significant visual characteristics (i.e. size, colour, placement and frequency of non-narra

57、tive disclosures typesetting, layouts, use of borders and headings for narrative disclosures), and the emergence of dominant patterns, themes, or trends over the period of the investigation. specific features selected for analysis include: language tone, such as emotive, descriptive, optimistic; use

58、 of acronyms; level of formality formal, informal, colloquial, slang, or jargon; graphics drawings, photographs, use of colour or shade, incorporation of tables, graphs or diagrams, use of symbols or logos; layout angles of text, headings and sub-headings, font type and size; nature of information t

59、ype and relative proportion of environmental and social information disclosed; location of information where the information is placed within the document; technical content whether the information is vague or provides enough information for a reader to gain specific knowledge and understanding.changes in the nature, style, tone and overall appearance of the graphics, langu