Accessibility of the Management's Discussion and Analysis to Citizen Users of Government Financial Reports

Yusuf, Juita‐Elena; Jordan, Meagan M.

doi:10.1111/pbaf.12170

Cited by 23 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Smith and Smith (1971) found that in order to understand annual report footnotes, readers require at least some college-level education to ensure access to the information contained therein. These findings were later echoed by Yusuf and Jordan (2017) who examined government Management Discussion and Analysis reports. Other researchers have investigated the readability of letters to shareholders (Subramanian et al, 1993), 10-K and 10-Q reports (Lee, 2012;Li, 2008;Miller, 2010) finding that more readable reports are related to better-performing firms, more persistent earnings, higher trading activity, and stock prices that are better able to absorb information.…”

Section: Readability Of Financial and Csr Reportsmentioning

confidence: 90%

CEO personality and language use in CSR reporting

Mahmoudian

Nazari

Gordon

et al. 2021

Business Ethics Env & Resp

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Chief executive officers (CEOs) hold the highest managerial authority in their enterprises. CEOs are responsible for overall organizational performance, which is influenced by their decisions. Recent business research has explored wide-ranging aspects of CEOs and their influence. Especially relevant to this study is research examining topics related to CEOs and corporate social responsibility such as the effects of CEO power and environmental, social, and governance disclosures on firm value (Li et al., 2018); the influence of CEO discourse on mining companies' social license to operate (de- Miguel-Molina et al., 2019); and the effects of CEO ethical idealism and ability on CSR disclosures (Everaert et al., 2019;García-Sánchez et al., 2020).Stakeholders' perceptions of organizational legitimacy (Dowling & Pfeffer, 1975) relate to organizational survival. In the modern environment, CSR reporting represents the key areas of both legitimacy and potential CEO influence. In particular, CEO personality may affect stakeholders' access to CSR information by altering the extent to which CSR reports are readable. Extant studies have ex-

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Section: Readability Of Financial and Csr Reportsmentioning

confidence: 90%

CEO personality and language use in CSR reporting

Mahmoudian

Nazari

Gordon

et al. 2021

Business Ethics Env & Resp

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The formula has been "popularised" in corporate report readability research (Courtis, 2004, p. 297) and continues to be widely used in readability studies of annual report narratives and other written corporate communications (e.g. Melloni et al, 2017;Yusuf and Jordan, 2017;Cheung and Lau, 2016;Moreno and Casasola, 2016). Using the formula facilitates linkages with the substantial corpus of corporate report readability research which utilises the measure.…”

Section: Readability Of Integrated Reportsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additional tests were conducted using the Fog Index and Flesch-Kincaid Grade level, measures commonly used in corporate report readability studies and as tests of robustness in conjunction with Flesch (e.g. Wang et al, 2018;Melloni et al, 2017;Yusuf and Jordan, 2017;Cheung and Lau, 2016;De Franco et al, 2015). The Fog Index is: (words per sentence + per cent of complex words)×0.4, where complex words contain three or more syllables (Li, 2008).…”

Section: Readability Of Integrated Reportsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Readability of integrated reports: an exploratory global study

Stone¹,

Lodhia

2019

AAAJ

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Purpose A goal of integrated reporting (IR) under the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC)’s leadership is to provide clearly written, comprehensible and accessible information. In light of this objective, the purpose of this paper is to explore the readability and accessibility of integrated reports, an issue magnified by the IIRC’s continual commitment to clear and readable report language, and its intention for IR to become the corporate reporting norm. Design/methodology/approach In a whole text software facilitated analysis, the study utilises readability measures and supplementary measures of reader accessibility in a multi-year analysis of a large sample of global integrated reports sourced from the IIRC examples database. Findings The findings highlight the low readability of analysed integrated reports and indicate that readability is not improving. The supplementary measures suggest sub-optimal use of visual communication forms and overuse of structural presentation techniques which may contribute to reader accessibility of the analysed reports. Research limitations/implications The study extends readability analysis to an emerging corporate reporting phenomenon and its findings contribute to the growing IR literature. The study applies supplementary measures of reader accessibility which advance the methods available to assess the communication efficacy of integrated and other corporate reports. Practical implications The analysis of the readability and accessibility of integrated reports in the study indicates that the IIRC’s goal of clear, comprehensible and accessible reporting is not reflected by reporters’ practices. This has implications for the IIRC, reporting organisations, report readers and regulators. Originality/value The study represents the first large-scale analysis of the readability and accessibility of global integrated reports.

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“…Although GASB limits MD&A to a list of topics, it encourages governments to effectively report only the most relevant information customized for the local community. That is, the MD&A section is essential for government financial transparency because it enables a non‐expert citizen or policymaker to obtain a basic understanding of the financial condition of their local government (Yusuf and Jordan 2017).…”

Section: Government Financial Reporting and Auditingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditor or Adviser? Auditor (In)Dependence and Its Impact on Financial Management

Yang

2020

Public Administration Review

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Fiscal transparency entails government financial reporting and independent audits. This study postulates and tests the dual functions of external auditors: an examiner who assesses government compliance with accounting rules and an adviser who supplements government financial management capacity. Computational text analyses show that localities, especially those with lower financial management capacity, are likely to adopt similar languages in summarizing the governments’ financial conditions if they share the same auditor, suggesting auditor input in government disclosure. The auditor advisory role intensifies with a longer tenure. Further analyses show that auditor tenure is positively associated with the timeliness of audited financial reports. On the other hand, a long tenure reduces the likelihood of auditors' identifying internal control deficiencies and thus points to accountability concerns. These findings highlight the importance of government capacity‐building in fiscal transparency initiatives and the unique challenges to auditor independence in the public sector.

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Accessibility of the Management's Discussion and Analysis to Citizen Users of Government Financial Reports

Cited by 23 publications

References 29 publications

CEO personality and language use in CSR reporting

CEO personality and language use in CSR reporting

Readability of integrated reports: an exploratory global study

Auditor or Adviser? Auditor (In)Dependence and Its Impact on Financial Management

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