Gender Representation in Corporate Annual Reports and Perceptions of Corporate Climate

Abstract

Annual reports from a sample of Fortune 500 firms were examined to determine male and female depiction in those reports. Parity indices were computed to relate male/female representation in the reports to male/female representation in the labor force. The parity indices were correlated with report readers' perceptions of corporate climate, measured by a nine-item Likerttype scale. Perceptions of corporate climate bore little relationship to male representation in the annual reports. However, as visibility of females increased, participants tended to rate corporate climate more favorably.

The portrayal of women in Canadian corporate annual reports

“…." The depiction of women in Canadian CAR photographs appears to be similar to that in other jurisdictions (Benschop & Meihuizen, 2002;Kuiper, 1988;Newson, 1988). Our fi ndings explicitly position the inclusion of photographs in CARs within the voluntary disclosure literature, which invokes discussion of cost-benefi t considerations in the choice of CAR photographs.…”

“…Prior to testing the relationship between CAR photographs and boards of directors and between corporate performance and women in CAR photographs, it is important to establish a baseline understanding of how women are portrayed in Canadian CARs. Thus, H1 builds on prior research suggesting males are more likely to be included in CARs (Benschop & Meihuizen, 2002;Kuiper, 1988;Newson, 1988), though this may vary by industry (Bernardi et al, 2006;Brammer et al, 2007). Additionally, males are more likely to be shown as corporate insiders as refl ected by their appearance (Benschop & Meihuizen), majority group membership (Anderson & Imperia, 1992;Bernardi et al, 2002Bernardi et al, , 2005, attire, and employee status (Benschop & Meihuizen).…”

“…Early research on the portrayal of women in annual reports was conducted primarily from the accounting (Tinker & Niemark, 1987;Macintosh, 1990), public relations (Newson, 1988), and communications (Kuiper, 1988) perspectives. Using a longitudinal approach to examining photographs in General Motors' CARs, Tinker and Niemark evaluated the role of annual reports in constituting and constraining gender roles for women for the period 1917-1976.…”

“…Based on fi ndings from a content analysis, however, Newson (p. 19) concluded that "the view of the organizations from their annual reports is that these are white male territories." Kuiper (1988) determined that males (females) were over (under)-represented in CARs relative to their actual labour force participation rates.…”

Employee Benefit Packages: How Understandable Are They?

“…The extent, coverage, costs, and benefits of written corporate communication policy were analyzed by Gilsdorf (1987); and Kuiper (1988) assessed the gender representation in corporate annual reports vis-a-vis corporate climate. The effectiveness of contemporary corporate annual report prose communication was studied by Courtis (1987) who found his sample of 65 Canadian annual reports to be beyond the fluent comprehension ease of 92 percent of the adult population and 56 percent of the investor population.…”