Dr Doris Merkl-Davies

Division: Financial Studies

Location: Room 1.08, Hen Goleg

Telephone: 01248 38 2120

Email: d.m.merkl-davies@bangor.ac.uk

Google Scholar Author Profile

Reader in Accounting

MA, PGCE (Vienna University), MBA, PhD (Bangor University)

Personal profile

My work focuses on impression management in corporate communication. Impression management entails the construction of a public impression by organisations with the intention to appeal to their audiences, including shareholders, stakeholders, the general public, and the media. The majority of research focuses on attempts to influence perceptions by means of financial statements (earnings management). However, the language in corporate narrative documents (e.g., chairmen’s statements, press releases, corporate social responsibility reports) constitutes a more subtle and powerful way of persuading audiences to accept a specific version of reality. My work is interdisciplinary and encompasses the development of conceptual and theoretical frameworks of impression management and the development and application of text analysis methodologies (primarily based on rhetoric, discourse analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis) for the analysis of corporate narratives. For this purpose, I draw on my background in accounting (MBA in Banking and Finance, PhD in Accounting) and literature and linguistics (MA in German and English). There is a growing interest in corporate narrative reporting, evidenced by the forthcoming publication of the Routledge Companion to Accounting Communication and the Special Issue of Accounting Forum on Analysing the Quality, Meaning and Accountability of Organizational Reporting and Communication, to which I have both contributed.

I am an editorial board member of the Accounting Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ, 3*) and of Accounting and Business Research (ABR, 3*). My work is published in highly regarded journals and I am the winner of the Mary Parker Follett Award for the best paper published in the Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal in 2011. The award is granted annually by the journal’s editors and members of the advisory board. AAAJ is one of the discipline’s leading academic journals. Reflecting the interdisciplinary orientation of the journal, the awards are named in memory of Mary Parker Follett, a pioneer in the field of management and in the accountability literature, who was international and interdisciplinary in her focus.

Roles within Bangor Business School

Deputy Director of the Centre for Impression Management in Accounting Communication (CIMAC)
Equal Opportunities Officer
QA and validation officer
Personal tutor

Undergraduate teaching

ASB 3211 Advanced Accounting Theory and Practice

Postgraduate teaching

ASB 4418 Accounting Theory
PhD workshops on conducting and writing a literature review and on qualitative research skills
ASB 4903 FRSS A2: Impression Management, Earnings, management, and Earnings Quality

External Examiner

University of Limerick 2012-

Supervision

Annika Beelitz: Organisational Legitimacy of the Nuclear Industry following the Fukushima Disaster (2010-present)

Sara Closs-Stacey: A conceptual framework of tax credits (2012-present)

Danial Hemmings: Corporate Equity Issues: The Symbolic Management of Investor Sentiment Prior to Seasoned Equity Offerings (2012-present)

Research interests

Impression management
Corporate narrative reporting
Corporate social and environmental reporting

Publications since 2008

“Dialogism in Corporate Social Responsibility Communications: Conceptualising Verbal Interactions between Organisations and their Audiences”, Journal of Business Ethics, forthcoming. (co-authors: Niamh Brennan and Annika Beelitz). [download here]

“Accounting Narratives and Impression management”, In: Jackson, L., Davison, J., and Craig, R. (eds.), Routledge Companion to Communication in Accounting. Routledge. (In press) (peer-reviewed). (co-author: Niamh Brennan). [download here]

“‘Metaphoring’ people out of this world: A Critical Discourse Analysis chairman’s statement of a UK defence firm”, Accounting Forum, Vol. 36 No. 3 (2012), pp. 178-193. (co-author: Veronika Koller). [download here]

“Using discourse to restore organisational legitimacy: ‘CEO-speak’ after an incident in a German nuclear power plant”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 108 No. 1 (2012), pp. 101-120. (co-author: Annika Beelitz). [download here]

“A Conceptual Framework of Impression Management: New insights from psychology, sociology, and critical perspectives”, Accounting and Business Research, Vol. 41 No. 5 (2011), pp. 415-437. (co-author: Niamh Brennan). [download here]

“Impression management and retrospective sense-making in corporate narratives: A social psychology perspective”, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Vol 24 No. 3 (2011), pp. 315-344. Mary Parker Follett Best Paper Award. (co-authors: Niamh Brennan and Stuart McLeay). [download here]

“Discretionary Disclosure Strategies in Corporate Narratives: Incremental Information or Impression Management?”, Journal of Accounting Literature, Vol. 26 (2007), pp. 116-196. (co-author: Niamh Brennan). ISSN 07737-4607. [download here]

Pre-2008 publications

“Regulation and enforcement of financial reporting in Austria”, Journal of Management and Governance, Vol. 8 No. 2 (2004), pp. 199-225. [download here]

“Drafting accounting law: An analysis of institutionalised interest representations, standard setting processes and international accounting standards”, In: Leuz, C., Pfaff, D., and Hopwood, A. (eds.), The Economics and Politics of Accounting: International Perspectives on Trends, Policy, and Practice, Oxford University Press, Oxford: 2004. ISBN 0-19-926062-1. (co-author Stuart McLeay). [download here]

Work in progress

With Niamh Brennan: “Rhetoric and Argument in Corporate Social and Enviornmental Reporting: The Dirty Laundry Case”, Working Paper.

With Annika Beelitz and Niamh Brennan: “A conceptual framework of corporate social responsibility in a corporate reporting context”, Working Paper.

With Petros Vourvachis and Niamh Brennan: “Text Analysis Methodologies in Corporate Narrative Reporting Research”, revise and resubmit (AAAJ).

With Niamh Brennan: ‘Homo economicus’, 'homo psychologicus',‘homo socialis’, ‘homo fabulans’ and ‘homo publicus’: A theoretical framework of impression management”, Working Paper.

With Niamh Brennan and Stuart McLeay: “Coh-Metrix: A new methodology for analysing readability in corporate narratives”, Working paper.

With Lynn Hodgkinson and Jo Wells: “Executive Share Option Backdating in the UK: Empirical Evidence”, Working paper.

“Constructing an autoethnography: Hegemonic stories and subversive tales”, Working Paper.

With Mike Jones: “Anti-abolition discourse in Richard Pennant’s parliamentary speeches on the abolition of the slave trade: A Critical Discourse Analysis Approach”, Working Paper.

Awards, grants & achievements

ESRC Grant for “Opportunistic managerial behaviour in relation to share option compensation in the UK”, (2008-2010), £99,985, (with Lynn Hodgkinson and Jo Wells). [access here]

Welsh Medium Postgraduate Scholarship in Accounting, (2011-2016), £85,280, Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol.

Winner of AAAJ 2011 Mary Parker Follett Best Paper Award for “Impression management and retrospective sense-making in corporate narratives: A social psychology perspective”, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Vol. 24 No. 3 (2011). (co-authors: Niamh Brennan and Stuart McLeay).

Editorial board membership & reviewing

Editorial board member of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 2013- and Accounting and Business Research 2013-
Ad hoc reviewer for Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Accounting and Business Research, European Accounting Review, Managerial Auditing Journal, British Accounting Review, Journal of Management and Governance, and Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, and the Australian Accounting Review.

Visiting appointments & invited research seminars and conference presentations

Visiting scholar at the University of Sydney Business School (1-30 March 2012)
Presentation at ‘Mediating Markets: International conference on media and the financial markets’ at The University of Edinburgh Business School (22 March 2013)
Research seminar at Bristol University (4th Feb. 2013)
Research seminar at Southampton Management School, Southampton University (14 Nov. 2012)
Research seminar at Adam Smith School of Business, the University of Glasgow (19 Sept. 2012)
Research seminar at the School of Accounting & Finance, University of Wollongong (30 March 2012)
Research seminar and master class at Centre for Accounting, Governance and Sustainability, School of Commerce, University of South Australia (21-23 March 2012)
Research seminar at Queen’s University Management School, Belfast University (10 Feb. 2012)
Research seminar at Quinn School of Business, University College Dublin (8 Oct. 2010 and 9 Feb. 2012)
Research seminar at Exeter Business School (1 April 2011)