Is Bad News Difficult to Read? A Readability Analysis of Differently Connoted Passages in the Annual Reports of the 30 DAX Companies

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-187
Author(s):  
Claudia Thoms ◽  
Anke Degenhart ◽  
Katharina Wohlgemuth
Keyword(s):  
Annual Report ◽  
Share Price ◽  
Stock Index ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Fiscal Year ◽  
Automated Content Analysis ◽  
Financial Communication ◽  
Negative News ◽  
Communication Context ◽  
German Stock

This study examines the strategic use of readability to obfuscate negative news in a German financial communication context. Combining a manual and an automated content analysis, the authors assess the tone and readability of three parts (chairman’s address, share-price development, and development in the fiscal year) of the 2014 annual reports of the 30 companies listed in the German stock index DAX. The results indicate that positively connoted passages in annual reports are not necessarily easier to read than negatively connoted passages. Furthermore, the readability of the annual report varies depending on the part and its function within the report.

scholarly journals Corporate dreams – Appropriate aspirations and the building of trust in annual reports

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrik Rahm ◽  
Niklas Sandell ◽  
Peter Svensson
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Theory ◽  
Annual Report ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Financial Position ◽  
Financial Communication ◽  
The Future ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Nasdaq Omx

This paper argues that the corporate annual report is not only a document comprising retrospective accounts of financial position and performance, but also a text that points to the future by means of presenting dreams, aspirations and fantasies. However, these dreams are not to be seen as irrational deviations from the rationalistically oriented discourse of accounting. Quite to the contrary, the three corporate dreams identified in this study – the colonial dream, the evolutionary dream and the efficiency dream – are part of the ongoing self-narration of the company, in which it tries to display an allegiance to a set of appropriate aspirations that are considered legitimate in contemporary global capitalism. Drawing upon ideas from narrative theory, annual reports from 2005 to 2010 collected from NASDAQ OMX Stockholm have been analyzed with the purpose of understanding how corporate dreams are used in financial communication. These corporate dreams contribute, the paper argues, to the construction of legitimacy and trust.

The Annual Reports of the Prison Commissioners for Scotland and Religion, 1903–1931

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-101
Author(s):  
Cameron McKay
Keyword(s):  
Annual Report ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Drinking Habits ◽  
Parental Neglect ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Causes Of Crime ◽  
Criminological Theories ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century penologists began to explore the possibility that environment and upbringing, as opposed to individual choice, were the causes criminality. The Prison Commissioners for Scotland, the devolved body who administered prisons north of the border, were not immune to this wider trend. Smith has argued that from the 1890s onwards the Commissioners began to accept that criminality was caused by social problems, namely alcoholism, but also parental neglect, poor education and poverty. In their efforts to test these new criminological theories, the Commissioners began to make more careful enquiries into the backgrounds of their charges. From 1896 to 1931 the Commissioners interviewed a sample of prisoners each year and included the findings in their annual report. Although the main focus of these interviews was on the upbringing and drinking habits of prisoners; by the 1900s the Commissioners seem to have added irreligion to the growing list of etiological causes of crime, and from 1903 onwards prisoners were asked to give details on their religious habits. Although it is debateable how much the Prison Commissioners revealed about the relationship between religion and crime, they did however provide a useful insight into the religiosity of the average prisoner.

Determinant of Audit Report Lag Among Mining Companies in Indonesia

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
Sari Angriany Natonis ◽  
Bambang Tjahjadi
Keyword(s):  
Stock Exchange ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Fiscal Year ◽  
Company Size ◽  
Audit Report ◽  
Public Accounting ◽  
Audit Opinion ◽  
Accounting Firm ◽  
Mining Companies

Time period in completing the audit work until the date of publishing audit report is called audit report lag. BAPEPAM requires each of going-public companies to publish their annual reports not later than three months after the fiscal year ends. The aim of this research was to determine the effect of profitability, solvency, company size, audit opinion, and size of public accounting firm on audit report lag at mining companies listed on Indonesia Stock Exchange during the period of 2013-2017. As many as 12 samples were obtained through purposive sampling technique. The data analysis technique used was the multiple regression analysis. The results showed that the profitability and company size negatively affected the audit report lag, while the other variables, such as solvency, audit opinion, and size of public accounting firm, had no significant effect on the audit report. The result of simultaneous test showed that all independent variables influenced audit report lag with 32.8% of determination coefficient.

EXPLORING THE CONTENTS OF THE BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAILROAD ANNUAL REPORTS: 1827–1856

2000 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary John Previts ◽  
William D. Samson
Keyword(s):  
Annual Report ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Corporate Disclosure ◽  
University Of Alabama ◽  
Complete Collection ◽  
Archival Collection ◽  
Annual Reporting ◽  
The University ◽  
Disclosure Practice ◽  
Corporate Practice

In 1995, a nearly complete collection of the annual reports of the earliest interstate and common carrier railroad in the U. S., the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O), was rediscovered in the archival collection at the Bruno Library of the University of Alabama. Dating from the company's inception in 1827 to its acquisition by the Chessie System in 1962, the reports present a unique opportunity for the exploration, study, and analysis of early U.S. corporate disclosure practice. This paper represents a study of the annual report information made publicly available by one of America's first railroads, and one of the first modern U.S. corporations. In this paper, early annual reports of the B&O which detail its formation, construction, and operation are catalogued as to content and evaluated. Mandated in the corporate charter, the annual “statement of affairs” presented by the management and directors to stockholders is studied as a process and as a product that instigated the institutional corporate practice recognized today as “annual reporting.” Using a single company methodology for assessment of reporting follows a pattern developed by Claire [1945] in his analysis of U.S. Steel and utilized by other researchers. This study demonstrates the use of archival information to improve understanding about the origins and contents of early annual reports and, therein, related disclosure forms.

Responding to “Discrediting” Events: Annual Report Disclosure Responses to Environmental Fines

2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hussein Warsame ◽  
Cynthia V. Simmons ◽  
Dean Neu
Keyword(s):  
Impression Management ◽  
Annual Report ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Matched Pair ◽  
Disclosure Quality ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Environmental Disclosure ◽  
Environmental Disclosures ◽  
Disclosure Responses

In this study we consider how a discrediting event such as an environmental fine influences the quality of environmental disclosures in subsequent annual reports. Starting from prior work in the areas of impression management along with environmental and social responsibility disclosures, we propose that environmental disclosures provide organizations with a method of “managing” such discrediting events. Using a matched-pair sample of publicly traded Canadian companies that have been subject to environmental fines and those that have not; we analyze changes in pre-fine and post-fine environmental disclosure quality. After controlling for firm-specific characteristics, the provided results are consistent with this explanation.

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