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.

Writing write-downs: the rhetoric of goodwill impairment

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-102
Author(s):  
Niklas Sandell ◽  
Peter Svensson
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Goodwill Impairment ◽  
Financial Communication ◽  
Rhetorical Practice ◽  
Nasdaq Omx ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose The aim of this paper is to study the rhetoric of goodwill impairment, more specifically rhetoric, as it is constructed in the form of accounts (i.e. statements that explain unanticipated or untoward behavior). The authors argue that goodwill impairment is not only a technical matter but also a rhetorical practice by means of which external scrutiny is responded to. Design/methodology/approach The data corpus consists of explanations provided by corporations regarding impairment of goodwill. Data were collected from annual reports from companies quoted on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm, Sweden. The impairment explanations were analyzed according to a taxonomy of account types. The explanations were subjected to close reading to discern the potential rhetorical functions of the different accounts. Findings Seven account types are identified and discussed, namely, excuse, justification, refocusing, concession, mystification, silence and wordification. Research limitations/implications There is a need for further research that explores the process of authorship (i.e. writing, editing, negotiating and revising) through which the texts of financial communication are produced. Practical implications The findings have implications for the future formulations of standards regarding qualitative explanations in financial reporting in general and explanations of goodwill impairment in particular. Originality/value The paper contributes to the knowledge about the use of natural language and rhetoric in financial communication.

New Developments in Management Reporting – The Modernisation of the Annual Report

2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 861-868 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regine Buchheim ◽  
Kati Beiersdorf
Keyword(s):  
Annual Report ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Commercial Law ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Financial Position ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
European Court ◽  
Management Reporting ◽  
Management Report

In Germany, the management report that comments on the company's business and financial position as well as its future prospects has long ago been introduced to the Handelsgesetzbuch (HGB – German Commercial Law). Ever since the European Court of Justice [ECJ] has clarified that GmbH & Co. KGs are classified as companies with limited liabilities under the 4th and 7th Directive, annual reports have to be published by an even wider range of companies.

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.

Extracting Key Phrases as Predictors of Corporate Bankruptcy: Empirical Analysis of Annual Reports by Text Mining

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cindy Yoshiko Shirata ◽  
Hironori Takeuchi ◽  
Shiho Ogino ◽  
Hideo Watanabe
Keyword(s):  
Annual Report ◽  
Prediction Models ◽  
Bankruptcy Prediction ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Financial Reports ◽  
Nonfinancial Information ◽  
Financial Position ◽  
Key Phrases ◽  
Retained Earnings ◽  
A Company

ABSTRACT Bankruptcy predictions have been one of the most interesting topics for accounting researchers. Most bankruptcy prediction models are developed by using financial ratios. However, signs of the changing financial position of a company may appear in the nonfinancial information earlier than we can identify the changes in the financial numbers. In recent years, analysis of qualitative information has become remarkably important, because frequent changes in accounting standards have made it difficult to compare financial numbers between years. In this study, we analyzed the sentences in financial reports in Japan and extracted key phrases/descriptions to predict bankruptcy. Our research revealed that if some particular expressions appear together with the word “dividend” or “retained earnings” in the same section of an annual report, they were effective in distinguishing between bankrupt companies and non-bankrupt companies.

scholarly journals Transparency, corporate governance and firm performance in The Netherlands

2016 ◽  
Vol 90 (7/8) ◽  
pp. 308-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry van Beusichem ◽  
Abe de Jong ◽  
Douglas DeJong ◽  
Gerard Mertens
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Firm Performance ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Firm Size ◽  
Annual Report ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Accounting Standard ◽  
Listed Firms ◽  
And Performance

We explore the relations between transparency, corporate governance, and performance for Dutch exchange-listed firms over 1997-2007. Our measure for transparency is based on annual report information. In 2005 a new accounting standard (IFRS) became mandatory and applicable to the annual reports of Dutch listed firms. We investigate the effects of IFRS by comparing pre and post IFRS periods. We find that under IFRS transparency has increased substantially, and that the determinants of transparency have also changed. Pre-IFRS, disclosure is mainly driven by firm size, leverage and protective preference shares. Post-IFRS, we observe very little variation in disclosure practices.

The One Hundred and First Annual Report of The Council 1965-66

1966 ◽  
Vol 70 (664) ◽  
pp. 506-531
Keyword(s):  
Annual Report ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
The One

The Centenary Year of the Society was launched by the Honorary President, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, by his Foreword in the Centenary Journal. “The hundred years of the Royal Aeronautical Society spans the whole romantic, even fantastic, story of Man's adventure into the air and into space.”The Annual Reports and the Journal throughout these hundred years have chronicled the story. This Annual Report —the hundred and first—records the contrasting interests of this past year: the advent of the Centenary has resulted in the somewhat nostalgic writings on the past, and considerations on the future have been caused by the Plowden Report.

scholarly journals Impression management in chairmen’s letters: An empirical study of banks’ annual reports in MENA region

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 69-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rasha Mahboub ◽  
Nehale Mostapha ◽  
Wagdy Hegazy
Keyword(s):  
Impression Management ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Annual Report ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Good News ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Structural Manipulation ◽  
Resource Decision

The study aims to investigate the extent of existence of strategies of impression management (IM) in the narrative section of 200 annual reports of a sample of 50 banks in five different countries of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab of Emirates) for 2011-2014. Seven variables were employed to identify the existence of IM strategies in the chairmen’s letters of the bank’s annual reports. By employing descriptive statistics, frequency distribution and proportion test, it was found that four out of the seven strategies have existed in the chairmen’s letters. These strategies are reading ease manipulation, visual and structural manipulation, performance comparisons, and performance attribution. It is interesting to note that the narrative of the annual report of major banks in MENA region was very difficult to read. This result may perhaps encourage more consideration to the obstacles of effective communication that are the basic mean of facilitating rational resource decision making. Moreover, the results demonstrated that management of banks in MENA region choose benchmarks that portray current bank performance in the best possible light; further they highlight good news rather than bad news and placing this good news in the most emphasized sections of the chairmen’s letters; also they prefer to blame the environment for bad news, but take the credit themselves for good news. Therefore, the study recommends auditing regulators to issue a new standard in which auditors are required to confirm the reliability of the information in the accounting narratives of banks annual reports.

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.

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