IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT OF VALE’S ACCOUNTING NARRATIVES REGARDING THE BRUMADINHO DAM DISRUPTION

Abstract

This work aims to investigate how the impression management strategies of dissimulation are represented, by the manipulation of the readability and thematic manipulation, in the accounting narratives in corporate communication, when the Brumadinho dam collapsed (January 25, 2019), belonging to the company Vale S.A. The methodology applied was the content analysis of accounting narratives in press releases and annual reports made available on the company’s website, published between 2018 and 2019. The survey results indicate that the readability index - measured by the Flesch Reading Index (FLF) – of all company reports during the analyzed period is easy to read. The usefulness of narratives to pass on economic information based on the maximization of utility, as well as behavioral explanations based on the use of emotional phrases and the insertion of narrative in social practice, was also proven. The results are consistent with the literature on the use of readability and emphasis on good news as a way of hiding negative information.