The EAA Virtual Activities Committee is pleased to announce the launch of a new series of virtual conversations on “Academic Empathy Dialogues” (AED).

Each event will host academics coming from different methodological paradigms but working on similar topics and ask them to have a conversation on their view of that topic and how they approach it. The aim is to create an opportunity to build bridges between “factions” that sometimes confront each other without making the right effort to understand the other side. Each conversation will have a mediator that will act as the chair and the facilitator of the conversation.

The first AED on “Narrative reporting and disclosure” will host Niamh Brennan and Bill McDonald, mediated by Steven Young on June 24 at 4:15 p.m. CEST. Registration is open here. 

The conversation will explore a range of themes including:

• Analysing content: humans vs. machines 
• The role of replication 
• Transparency, interdisciplinarity, and resource sharing
• The big unanswered questions in financial discourse and the barriers to progress

Participants will have the opportunity to submit questions during the event exclusively via the Zoom chat. If you would like to send a question or comment ahead of the event, you can do using this form here.

Background reading options (entirely voluntary) for the session include:

• Merkl-Davies, D.M., Brennan, N.M. (2007). Discretionary disclosure strategies in corporate narratives: incremental information or impression management? Journal of Accounting Literature 26: 116–194
• Li, F. (2010a). Textual analysis of corporate disclosures: A survey of the literature. Journal of Accounting Literature 29: 143-165
• Loughran, T., McDonald, B. (2016). Textual analysis in accounting and finance: A survey. Journal of Accounting Research 54(4): 1187-1230