Annual general meetings—rituals of closure or ideal speech situations? A dual analysis

Abstract

This paper discusses one of the cornerstones of corporate governance, namely the annual general meeting (AGM). The paper builds on field material collected from participating in 36 AGMs during the spring of 2004 as well as on literature on corporate governance. Since the amount of research on AGMs is sparse the research question is rather straightforward and formulated as what goes on at an AGM? The analysis of the field material builds on two separate theoretical frameworks: seeing the AGM as a ritual and an ideal speech situation. The paper notes that AGMs show several traces of an ideal speech situation but that they are also repetitive acts in which the actors seek jointly to support the closing of the accounting year.