Building Trust in Crisis Management: A Study of Insolvency Practitioners and the Role of Accounting Information and Processes

Abstract

This paper seeks to understand how insolvency practitioners attempt to build trust with a heterogeneous creditor body during the crisis of formal insolvency and the role accounting information and processes play. Accounting information is mobilized in different ways according to how insolvency practitioners believe the information will be interpreted and valued. This paper suggests specific qualitative characteristics, accounting principles, and processes which appear to enhance trust building in a crisis context. These include perceived objectivity, comparability, cash flow accounting, “matching” of secured liabilities with secured assets, and “crisis” audit. The value ascribed by insolvency practitioners to maintaining specific creditor relationships also appears relevant to trust‐building activities. A “tit‐for‐tat” strategy emerges with secured creditors, whereby insolvency practitioners engage in demonstrable fee write‐offs, but on the implicit understanding that future, lucrative work will come their way. This study points to the importance for researchers and policymakers of understanding the “desirable” properties of accounting through informed understandings of how and why that information is mobilized and received in specific relationships between people.

The language of profit warnings: a case of denial, defiance, desperation and defeat

“…The main way in which management tries to enhance credibility is by increasing appeals to honesty. We base our conjecture relating to trust on prior literature that suggests language use is related to persuasive trust building (Joyce, 2020) and specifically that ethos is related to “trust” (Beason, 1991). Some research suggests that ritual and visibility of executives bring meaning for participants to in-person meetings, such as board meetings and Q&A sessions of annual-result presentations (e.g.…”

“…We believe managers use language in earnings press releases, including profit warnings, not just to signal expectations but to persuade organisational audiences of the profit warnings' disclosure credibility. Examining language use in profit warnings provides a more nuanced analysis of management communication and insights into persuasive trust-building (Joyce, 2020) between managers and their audiences. Such a language may also unconsciously reveal managers' thinking on evolving events.…”

Can audit firms be trusted (again)?

“…Client firms indeed hire a trusted auditor to have in turn their corporate disclosure trusted by stakeholders, since "the value of auditing arises from its ability to assure that the financial statements faithfully reflect the client's underlying economics" (DeFond and Zhang, 2014, p. 292). However, as argued by previous studies, the necessary competence to understand the available information is required to assess the trustworthiness of professionals (Nooteboom 2002(Nooteboom , 2006Joyce, 2020). Therefore, "the professional-client relationship trust is more basic" (Joyce, 2020(Joyce, , p. 1627.…”

Carillion's strategic choices and the boardroom's strategies of persuasive appeals: ethos, logos and pathos

“…They argue that management enthusiastically uses corporate reports as an institutionalised communicative channel for managing different strategic and tactical choices through rhetorical construction. Narrative and repetitive rhetoric corporate reporting is a technique used by executives to promote strategic corporate decisions and choices and for persuading stakeholders of the corporate new direction of travel, and this could be followed for releasing significant news such as disclosing profit warnings (Joyce, 2020), earning press release (Davis and Tama-Sweet, 2012) or to report on corporate failure (Sandell and Svensson, 2016). Davis et al examined how managers use language across alternative disclosure outlets; they argued that managers use rhetoric language to signal their expectations about future performance.…”