Communication and Persuasion in Corporate Accounting

Corporate accounting is done by people inside a company. These accountants are searching for ways to improve the bottom line of a company. Since they work for the company they are privy to much more information than those outside the company. As such they are able to communicate with workers more directly. This is the first place where communication happens: in the factory talking to the workers. This can happen any time but especially before and after financial statements are prepared.

From here the accounts report both the numbers, and their findings from talking to the workers up the line to the senior management. Once the information is with them, the senior management meet to discuss possible courses of action. This is where a big chunk of persuasion takes place, trying to suggest a course of action based on the numbers to the other members of the meeting. Often these are communicated using presentations of the financial statements and all the implications behind them. Once decided, the decision for action is passed back down. This is often done through business memos, concise memos that quickly get to the point.

Another common type of communication is talking person to person. This is very important to gather information directly and to persuade directly. This direct person to person is important because of the differences between the finance people and the workers of a company. In the minds of the workers, the accounts are “just a finance person, and all you want me to do is cut costs.” Thus the accountants must be diplomatic in their communicating desired actions with these workers even though they both have a desire for the success of the company.

The profile that would identify accounts is one of detail orientation. They must be ever watchful of little bits of information that can easily get lost in the system. Additionally they are trusted because they must have a high sense of confidentiality. If the numbers from inside a company escaped there would be serious ramifications.

For genres of communication there is not a whole lot of judicial or epideictic oratory. This is because we care about the future of the company. Thus deliberative reigns supreme. When you can come in and make a presentation about the numbers and suggest a course of action based on similar past events, then you can often be very persuasive.

My own interest in this field came about from a few things. I enjoy seeing how numbers interact, how changing this number will affect that one. In addition to that, it comes naturally to me, I understand why they do things the way they do. I found this information from meeting with my accounting professor and talking about the various situations.