Managerial Disclosure of Financial Information To Employees: a Historical and Comparative Review

Abstract

In recent years there have been signs of developing interest in Australia and New Zealand in the voluntary disclosure of financial information to employees. Most recently, this bas manifested itself in financial 'information-sharing' in the context of consultative committees, staff briefings and other human resource management-style communications initiatives. Although frequently represented as indicative of a 'new' management style, such initiatives have a long historical legacy. This paper gives a background to the practice of 'employee reporting' and provides a critical analysis of employer perspectives on financial disclosure. It is argued that unitarist ideology has supplied much of the theoretical underpinning of managerial attitudes in this field, leading to a very particular view of accountancy's potential to contribute to 'good' industrial relations. The paper also examines labour reaction to voluntary disclosure initiatives and suggests that in accounting for the 'mixed success' of employer offerings insufficient attention has been paid to differences in underlying ideologies. The author rejects unitarist conceptualisations of the 'accounting and industrial relations' environ ment as both descriptively and normatively inadequate.