Ebba Sjögren

This paper investigates the work involved in making sense of specific financial numbers within a preparer organization and conveying this understanding at the corporate-capital market interface. An observation-based study was undertaken of the investor relations team’s interactions during the silent period up to the release of the quarterly report for a large Northern European bank. This rare empirical material was used to trace the successive framing (Goffman, 1974) of the Core Tier 1 ratio, a regulated measure of capital adequacy that the case organisation “delivered” on in its quarterly report. We argue, in contrast to prior literature, that preparers of corporate financial reporting are limited in their choices of the economic reality they present by the very process of constructing a meaning of financial numbers. The process of framing involved anchoring specific numerical representations to perceived intraorganizational realities, market audience expectations, as well as past representations of financial performance. We observed how specific interpretations of financial numbers, as expressed in words and phrases that became imbued with meaning, were moved between spatio-temporally separated sites through the circulation of cues. These cues provide a scaffolding for the enactment of interpretational frames within specific situations – and across sites. The development and circulation of cues in interactions between investor relations professionals and numerous other parties at the corporate-capital market interface contribute to making financial numbers meaningfully anchored, widely distributed and influential representations of organizational reality.

Various evaluations of the internal market suggest that member states’ implementation continues to lag behind in several areas. In addition to the European Court of Justice, the European Commission also has means for pursuing compliance without judicial recourse. Since 2002, the Commission coordinates the SOLVIT-network: national authorities with the mandate to resolve problems related to misapplications of internal market directives by informal means. Using the case of Sweden, we investigate the techniques used by SOLVIT and what impact these have on the administrative system of an individual member state. Drawing on a governmentality perspective, we find that SOLVIT Sweden contributes to juridification of the work methods through which the internal market is realized. The governmentality approach also highlights the policy-making capacity of ex post control. Specifically, the visibility provided by the national SOLVIT-centers work suggests a role as watchdogs for the Commission’s enforcement of the internal market.