A Cross-Cultural Approach to Annual Report Through Impression Management

Abstract

The bunch of information a company sends to its market and stakeholders has to meet their expectations in terms of accuracy, credibility and understandability in order to face the increasing complexity of national and international economic environments. Both literature (e.g. Rogers and Brown 1999) and non-academic journals/press (e.g. Forbes 1996, p. 192) have widely concluded that the annual report is a marketing tool to attract new investors. Firms target various stakeholders not only with financial information but also with messages regarding the corporate image, corporate social responsibility and other communication objectives, providing varied images and encoded messages for their targets. So far research has shown that managers use annual report to provide a self-interested view of the corporate performance. Recently, attention has shifted from the management of the accounting numbers or earnings management (Schipper 1989) to presentation management (Aerts 1994) and/or the presentational format with which the information is displayed (Graves et al. 1996).