Looking Behind the Numbers : How Narratives Strengthen and Weaken the Persuasiveness of Accounting Numbers

In recent times, the persuasiveness of accounting information has received increasing attention in the literature. Prior research has focused on the persuasiveness of accounting numbers, either ignoring narratives or focusing on how they are often dismissed as ‘soft' or ‘subjective'. However, examining narratives is important because they typically accompany numbers in the presentation of accounting information, and thus can substantially affect the use, interpretation, view, understanding, and framing of those numbers (cf. Espeland, 2015). Using a case study of a non-government development organization, we examine the influence of narratives on the persuasiveness of accounting information. Our results show that narrative information can both strengthen and weaken the persuasiveness of accounting numbers by playing two roles: narratives have an informational role, adding information about performance compared to numbers alone; narratives also have a corrective role, directly critiquing the numbers and offering alternative interpretations of performance. Rather than being an intrinsic characteristic of specific types or forms of accounting information, we examine how persuasiveness is an outcome of a social process, dependent upon the content and characteristics of specific forms of accounting information, the knowledge and experience of the organizational actors, and the specific actions, judgements or decisions under consideration. Overall, we highlight the importance of analyzing whether and how accounting information (of whatever form or type) can become authoritative for organizational participants