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Douglasian cultural dialogues and the Financial Reporting Council complexity project

This paper utilises Mary Douglas’ cultural theory to analyse responses to a Financial Reporting Council discussion paper on complexity of corporate reporting. Central to cultural theory is the notion of cultural dialogues which proposes that within any community four solidarities will be present and in constant competition. The analysis of the comments letters reveals the voices of the different solidarities as they seek to persuade others of the validity of their viewpoint. This approach recognises that, because the solutions offered up by each culture have limitations, all four voices need to be heard in any debate (termed a clumsy solution).