Paradise Lost: Accounting Narratives Without Numbers

Abstract

Abstract Regulations addressing corporate reporting in the United Kingdom require reporting entities to disclose their business model in their Strategic Report. The business model is intended as the organising concept for the non-financial disclosures, with its principal role being to explain how the reporting entity creates value for stakeholders. The business model concept has become a pervasive concept for corporate reporting with global organisations such as the IIRC, AICPA and IFAC emphasising it central role in external reporting. Using interviews conducted with FTSE 350 company executives and others in the reporting ecosystem, this paper analyses the extent to which responses from the interviewees align with the economic and strategic management literature framing the conceptualisation of business models. It is argued in this paper that there is a powerful preformative aspect to business model reporting. It does not strengthen accountability but serves a different purpose: to colonise new arenas of value by installing unstable concepts like purpose, value and stakeholders. These business model disclosures obfuscate and provide an opportunity for managers to construct narratives that are untethered from the financial statements to create stories without numbers. This ‘reinvention’ of capitalism is more a recasting of old principles rather than ushering an era of a more enlightened view of the corporation. It is a salutary reminder that regulation of corporate reporting does not necessarily lead to improved accountability.