Investigating Presentational Change in U.K. Annual Reports: A Longitudinal Perspective

Beattie, Vivien; Dhanani, Alpa; Jones, Michael

doi:10.1177/0021943607313993

Cited by 147 publications

(132 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…To study self-representations in accounting narratives, this dissertation is positioned in the context of firms' publicly disclosed information, which has been examined within the scope of the accounting literature in many previous studies (see e.g. Cooke, 1989;Harte and Owen, 1991;Preston, Wright and Young, 1996;Bartlett and Jones, 1997;Beattie and Jones, 1997;Wennestam, 1998;Mouritsen, Larsen and Bukh, 2001;Stanton and Stanton, 2002;Clatworthy and Jones, 2003;Beattie, Dhanani and Jones, 2008;Campbell, McPhail and Slack, 2009;Leung, Parker and Courtis, 2015).…”

Section: Introduction An Inclusive View On Accounting Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite the widening scope and length of accounting narratives (Beattie, Dhanani and Jones, 2008;Ditlevsen, 2012b;Michalak et al, 2017), the accounting literature has often adopted a narrow perspective on accounting, including book-keeping and follow-up on accounting information, or the external output of this process, e.g. the written narratives or numerical information in the annual report.…”

Section: Introduction An Inclusive View On Accounting Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Patterns of corporate visual selfrepresentation in accounting narratives

Eriksson¹

2017

Dissertation From the Swedish Research School of Management and Information Technology (MIT). Licentiate Theses

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This dissertation deals with firms' visual and pre-visual self-representations in accounting narratives.Self-representations are those descriptions about the company that firms include in accounting narratives to convey the current standings and their identity. External stakeholders increasingly expect non-numerical information about firms to be disclosed, and accounting narratives are a key medium for firms to account for their activities and maintain legitimacy as social actors. The question of which reporting conventions exist for legitimating self-representations, especially from a visual perspective, remains unexplored. The purpose of this study is therefore to explore the empirical phenomenon of self-representations in accounting narratives in relation to legitimation rhetoric.The study is based on three research papers dealing with different patterns of self-representations in accounting-related narratives, including corporate reporting and business model diagrams. The examples are viewed through the theoretical lenses of semiotics and institutional theory, particularly legitimation theory. The study combines visual methods (visual content analysis and visual taxonomy) with other methods (interviews, text analysis) to conceptualize and exemplify what is meant by self-representations in accounting narratives. The study finds that there may be multiple parallel pre-visual self-representations at play to influence representations of the self, that visual selfrepresentations are becoming more common in accounting narratives, and that several rhetorical strategies for legitimation are observable in these representations. By showing how diagrams can serve a legitimating purpose in accounting narratives, it is argued that diagrams should be considered on par with graphs and photographs as visual rhetorical devices in accounting narratives, and that they could be used as key communicative elements in the accounting process.Second, based on the longitudinal and comparative examples of self-representations, it is suggested that self-representations increasingly refer to abstract rather than concrete referents. This change is discussed in terms of the increasingly digital and service-based knowledge economy, where material referents give way to "amaterial" values. The contribution of this study is to describe selfrepresentations through several empirical examples, and to thereby increase awareness among practitioners and researchers of how visuals serve as communicative resources with legitimating functions in accounting narratives. Four concepts are proposed as tools for explaining the observed developments, and for improving visual literacy with regard to accounting narratives: inclusive perspective on accounting narratives, amateriality, self-representation, and diagrams. Keywords: visual research, self-representation, diagrams, accounting narrative, corporate reporting, public disclosure, business models, semiotics, annual report, Ericsson Sammanfattning Denna licentiatavhandling handlar om företags visu...

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Section: Introduction An Inclusive View On Accounting Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introduction An Inclusive View On Accounting Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patterns of corporate visual selfrepresentation in accounting narratives

Eriksson¹

2017

Dissertation From the Swedish Research School of Management and Information Technology (MIT). Licentiate Theses

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“…For example, in the UK the amount of text increased by 375% between 1965 and 2004 (Beattie et al, 2008). Goel and Gangolly (2012) reported an increase in the median numbers of 15.991 in 1994 to the median of 55.000 words in 2007 for 10-K annual reports.…”

Section: Textual Information To Automatically Detect Fraudmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From mostly communicating accounting information, companies began using it to express their corporate identity (Beattie et al, 2008;Lee, 1994). At the same time, the computer capabilities advanced, allowing for more efficient exploration of textual data (Smith and Taffler, 1999).…”

Section: Textual Information To Automatically Detect Fraudmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, a simple comparison is therefore not enough as the differences between the MD&A sections of companies are expected to be subtle. With the increase in reporting norms companies adopted a more similar reporting practice to meet the standards (Beattie et al, 2008). Furthermore, companies reuse parts of the MD&A section of previous years in their latest annual report.…”

Section: The Text Mining Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Text mining to detect indications of fraud in annual reports worldwide

Fissette¹

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Form and substance: Visual content in CSR reports and investors’ perceptions

Invernizzi

Bellucci

Acuti

et al. 2021

Psychology and Marketing

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Although the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting is well recognized, the influence of the visual characteristics of CSR reports on stakeholders' evaluations of companies is largely overlooked. Drawing on theories of the processing of fluency and legitimacy, this study deploys a content analysis and a realistic laboratory experiment to assess how the use of visuals in CSR reports affects investors' perceptions. With an international sample of large companies, the content analysis explores how reports use visuals and convey messages to readers.The subsequent experiment measures the optimal number of images in reports related to social responsibility. Specifically, we investigate whether a larger number of images increases the processing fluency of investors. Based on the theoretical background and the content analysis findings, we expect that an increase in processing fluency reduces perceived hypocrisy and, in turn, increases perceived organizational legitimacy. The results show that a moderate number of images (vs. zero images or a high number of images) increases investors' processing fluency and decreases their perception of hypocrisy, leading to higher levels of organizational legitimacy. This study concludes by providing actionable implications for how companies can improve their legitimacy through nonfinancial disclosure.

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Investigating Presentational Change in U.K. Annual Reports: A Longitudinal Perspective

Cited by 147 publications

References 43 publications

Patterns of corporate visual selfrepresentation in accounting narratives

Patterns of corporate visual selfrepresentation in accounting narratives

Text mining to detect indications of fraud in annual reports worldwide

Form and substance: Visual content in CSR reports and investors’ perceptions

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