Actorhood of the European Court of Auditors: Visual Analysis

Background Public sector audit (PSA) is, still today, one field not so much explored by researchers, compared how, instead, it should have been, (Hay & Cordery, 2018; Johnsen, 2019). The first studies on the PSA can be found in the early eighties and mainly investigated the role of auditing (Baber, 1983; Evans & Patton, 1987), and performance auditing (Hatherly & Parker, 1989; Yamamoto & Watanabe, 1989; Guthrie & Parker; 1999; Johnsen et al., 2001). Other studies have focused on the topic of Value for money (VFM) auditing (Jacobs, 1998; Lapsley & Pong, 2000; Morin, 2001). Other two topics on PSA are audit quality (Copley, 1991; Sanders & Allen, 1993) and the role and the function of PSA after NPM reforms (Gendron et al., 2001; Pallot, 2003).
Previous studies have been mainly carried out with reference to the National Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs), (Blume & Voigt, 2011; Vacca, 2014; Bunn et al., 2018; Cordery et al., 2018; Yamamoto & Kim, 2019; Johnsen et al., 2019). The European Court of Auditors has been rarely investigated by previous studies, wherein the attention of law scholars was mainly focused on auditing standards (Brenninkmeijer et al., 2018). This showed the need to analyse one the European Court of Auditors (ECA) was established to audit the European Union (EU)'s finances.

Purpose From its establishment in 1993 by the Maastricht Treaty, the court serves as an external auditor of the EU budget and collaborate with the national Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs), in a spirit of trust whilst maintaining each its independence.
The ECA, while invested with great power and responsibilities by the Maastricht Treaty (artt. 285-287), remains to be relatively unknown both by scholars and, also, by citizens. Conscious of that, to become more visible and recognized for the work it does, the ECA has made a decision as from the 2009 to present itself through an official journal, available online on ECA website. The purpose of this paper is to explore the images of the ECA and their development that is still an unexplored field by the accounting scholars. Since the images can be considered an important tool as they reflecting reality and playing an important role in shaping it by communicating meanings (Kyriacou, 2016), the aim of the paper is to discuss, thanks to the analysis done on the front covers of the ECA official journal from 2009 until 2019, the strategy adopted by the court to communicate with diverse stakeholders.

Design/Methodology/Approach On the basis of pioneering studies on the visual images of accountancy (e.g. Baldvinsdottir et al., 2009; Benschop & Meihuizen, 2002; Davison, 2010; 2011; Kyriacou, 2016), to carried out the present study, was observed 106 journal issues published during this period and there were 325 distinct images depicted on its cover that laid ground for the analysis. A qualitative content analysis was employed to explore and scrutinise the total number of the images and to capture the frequency of certain visual elements. Visual elements that were in focus have been the use of color schemas used for the text and images, social dynamics between individuals depicted, focus of the images, contextual domains, locations, apparent demographic characteristics of the individuals depicted such as gender, age and ethnicity as well as specific symbols.
Analysis of the coded data was performed by the means of two-step cluster analysis.

Findings Preliminary descriptive and exploratory analysis performed by the means of two-step cluster analysis has revealed complex patterns of ECA development over time. The descriptive analysis has revealed that ECA journal have primarily chosen neutral grey colors of its background instead focusing on emergence of the bright colored images to catch readers attentions.
Primary picture type on the covers was close up of single or group of individuals usually in two particular situations, namely presentations in front of the audience or in the group posing in front of the camera signalizing the dynamic and group intensive nature of ECA work. A specific focus of the picture has been reflecting the picture type frequencies and has primarily been directed toward individuals, yet also attending to the symbols and workplace settings.
Personal, political, social and technological aspects have dominated the domains within which individuals have been positions. Signaling the importance of the intersection between these contextual aspects in ECA work.
When it comes to the apparent characteristics of the individuals depicted on the pictures we can observe male Caucasian men dominating the scene those being dressed in formal closes and being between 30 and 45 years of age. The images show a number of attributes signalizing intellectual nature of the ECA for example glasses, formal bags and documents are frequent in the images as well as EU flags symbolising political nature.

Originality/Value The originality of the present study is represented by the focus of the analysis, as ECA, that is very rare in literature and, even more to rare to find, are the public sector accounting studies that adopt the method of visual images. The investigation presented in the paper could inform both theory and practice by furthering the understanding of how a public professional organization as ECA construct its external image as well as by illuminating how the construction of the reality can be managed and used in an effective way.