چکیده : 

This paper explores the nature of private social and environmental reporting (SER). From

interviews with UK institutional investors, we show that both investors and investees

employ Goffmanesque, staged impression management as a means of creating and disseminating

a dual myth of social and environmental accountability. The interviewees’ utterances

unveil private meetings imbued with theatrical verbal and physical impression management.

Most of the time, the investors’ shared awareness of reality belongs to a Goffmanesque

frame whereby they accept no intentionality, misrepresentation or fabrication, believing

instead that the ‘performers’ (investees) are not intending to deceive them. A shared perception

that social and environmental considerations are subordinated to financial issues renders

private SER an empty encounter characterised as a relationship-building exercise with

seldom any impact on investment decision-making. Investors spoke of occasional instances

of fabrication but these were insufficient to break the frame of dual myth creation. They only

identified a handful of instances where intentional misrepresentation had been significant

enough to alter their reality and behaviour. Only in the most extreme cases of fabrication

and lying did the staged meeting break frame and become a genuine occasion of accountability,

where investors demanded greater transparency, further meetings and at the extreme,

divested shares. We conclude that the frontstage, ritualistic impression management in private

SER is inconsistent with backstage activities within financial institutions where private

financial reporting is prioritised. The investors appeared to be in a double bind whereby they

devoted resources to private SER but were simultaneously aware that these efforts may be at

best subordinated, at worst ignored, rendering private SER a predominantly cosmetic, theatrical

and empty exercise.