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

Al Bahloul, M; Alkaraan, F; Hussainey, K

Abstract

Companies documents such as annual reports incorporate narratives of repetitive rhetorical strategies
as effective mechanisms adopted by companies’ boardrooms to promote strategic change and strategic
choices. These mechanisms can be viewed as persuasive appeals to facilitate boardroom discourses.
Yet, such persuasive appeals are instrumental in releasing significant signs regarding the outcomes of
unsuccessful strategic choices that led companies to collapse such as Enron (USA) and Carillion (UK).
Despite the contribution of previous research through narrative analysis domains, conceptualization
of narrative practices remains a relatively a neglected area in the extant accounting literature. This
study attempts to offer insights to boardrooms discourses through critical discourse analysis of
persuasive strategies embedded in company’s annual reports. Findings of this study show how
persuasive strategies and repetitive slogans trigger the discourses of Carillion’s annual reports by
drawing on perspectives from upper echelon theory, impression management and communication
patterns. Our analytical framework is rooted in Aristotle’s three pillars of rhetorical proofs; ethos
(credibility/trustworthiness), pathos (emotion/identification through cultural domains) and logos
(reason/rationale) in investigating narrative extracts regarding persuasive appeals strategies adopted
by Carillion’s board through annual reports that facilitate discourse regarding Carillion strategic
choices. Further, we emphasis on repetitive rhetorical slogans strategies embedded in the annual
reports regarding Carillion’s acquisitions strategy. We viewed acquisitions narratives as rhetorical
communication artefacts and analyze the repetitive rhetoric slogans in these corporate documents.
Findings reveal that Carillion’ board strategically use repetitive rhetoric slogans to shape optimistic
corporate future performance which might be different from the feasible reality. Finally, we argue that
corporate executives are striving to construct an alternative reality stem from their initial unrealistic
aspiration to lead their sector of less controlled market share. Findings of this study have theoretical
and managerial implications.

Citation

Al Bahloul, M., Alkaraan, F., & Hussainey, K. (in press). Carillion’s strategic choices and boardroom’s strategies of persuasive appeals: ethos, logos, pathos. Journal of Applied Accounting Research, https://doi.org/10.1108/JAAR-06-2022-0134

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 29, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Jan 2, 2023
• Deposit Date: Jan 9, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 9, 2023
• Journal: Journal of Applied Accounting Research
• Print ISSN: 0967-5426
• Publisher: Emerald
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/JAAR-06-2022-0134
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1108/JAAR-06-2022-0134
• Additional Information: Additional Information : Alkaraan, F., Albahloul, M. and Hussainey, K. (2023), "Carillion's strategic choices and the boardroom's strategies of persuasive appeals: ethos, logos and pathos", Journal of Applied Accounting Research, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JAAR-06-2022-0134