IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/qualqt/v56y2022i2d10.1007_s11135-021-01135-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bibliometric analysis of literature on narrative discourse in corporate annual reports (1990–2019)

Author

Listed:
  • Yubin Qian

    (University of Chinese Academy of Sciences)

  • Ya Sun

    (University of International Business and Economics)

Abstract

This article presents a bibliometric analysis of prior studies on narratives in corporate annual reports (CARs) between 1990 and 2019. It is found that studies in the past longitudinally follow an ascending trend with uneven distribution across disciplines and nations. Their primary data source is the entire CAR or its components. Usually based on the content or textual analytical approaches, they aim to uncover the mapping of narrative discourse onto the corporate performance. Their hotspots include CARs’ readability, financial reporting aggressiveness, firm disclosure genres, firm disclosure content, and corporate impression management. They rely heavily upon the theoretical or methodological frameworks involving corporate governance, dictionary, machine learning, and statistical modeling. Findings of the present research point to five under-investigated areas that need future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Yubin Qian & Ya Sun, 2022. "Bibliometric analysis of literature on narrative discourse in corporate annual reports (1990–2019)," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 429-446, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:qualqt:v:56:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s11135-021-01135-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11135-021-01135-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11135-021-01135-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11135-021-01135-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Iatridis, George Emmanuel, 2016. "Financial reporting language in financial statements: Does pessimism restrict the potential for managerial opportunism?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-17.
    2. Niamh M. Brennan & John P. Conroy, 2013. "Executive hubris: the case of a bank CEO," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 26(2), pages 172-195, February.
    3. Lynnette Purda & David Skillicorn, 2015. "Accounting Variables, Deception, and a Bag of Words: Assessing the Tools of Fraud Detection," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(3), pages 1193-1223, September.
    4. Chaomei Chen, 2006. "CiteSpace II: Detecting and visualizing emerging trends and transient patterns in scientific literature," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 57(3), pages 359-377, February.
    5. Madalina Dumitru & Nadia Albu & Valentin Florentin Dumitru & Catalin Nicolae Albu, 2014. "Practices Regarding the Forms of Communication with the Consumers used by a Multinational Company at Global and Local Level," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 16(35), pages 1-41, February.
    6. Beyer, Anne & Cohen, Daniel A. & Lys, Thomas Z. & Walther, Beverly R., 2010. "The financial reporting environment: Review of the recent literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 296-343, December.
    7. Michael Erkens & Luc Paugam & Hervé Stolowy, 2015. "Non-financial information: State of the art and research perspectives based on a bibliometric study," ACCRA, Association francophone de comptabilité, vol. 21(3), pages 15-92.
    8. M.J. Cobo & A.G. López-Herrera & E. Herrera-Viedma & F. Herrera, 2011. "Science mapping software tools: Review, analysis, and cooperative study among tools," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(7), pages 1382-1402, July.
    9. Beattie, Vivien, 2014. "Accounting narratives and the narrative turn in accounting research: Issues, theory, methodology, methods and a research framework," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 111-134.
    10. Waris Ali & Jedrzej George Frynas & Zeeshan Mahmood, 2017. "Determinants of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Disclosure in Developed and Developing Countries: A Literature Review," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(4), pages 273-294, July.
    11. M.J. Cobo & A.G. López‐Herrera & E. Herrera‐Viedma & F. Herrera, 2011. "Science mapping software tools: Review, analysis, and cooperative study among tools," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(7), pages 1382-1402, July.
    12. Baginski, Stephen P & Hassell, John M & Hillison, William A, 2000. "Voluntary Causal Disclosures: Tendencies and Capital Market Reaction," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 371-389, December.
    13. Patricia M. Dechow & Weili Ge & Chad R. Larson & Richard G. Sloan, 2011. "Predicting Material Accounting Misstatements," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(1), pages 17-82, March.
    14. Merkl-Davies, Doris M. & Koller, Veronika, 2012. "‘Metaphoring’ people out of this world: A Critical Discourse Analysis of a chairman's statement of a UK defence firm," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 178-193.
    15. Brian Rutherford, 2003. "Obfuscation, Textual Complexity and the Role of Regulated Narrative Accounting Disclosure in Corporate Governance," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 7(2), pages 187-210, June.
    16. Mahfuja Malik, 2015. "Value-Enhancing Capabilities of CSR: A Brief Review of Contemporary Literature," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 419-438, March.
    17. Feng Li, 2010. "The Information Content of Forward‐Looking Statements in Corporate Filings—A Naïve Bayesian Machine Learning Approach," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(5), pages 1049-1102, December.
    18. Michael Erkens & Luc Paugam & Hervé Stolowy, 2015. "Non-financial information: State of the art and research perspectives based on a bibliometric study," ACCRA, Association francophone de comptabilité, vol. 21(3), pages 15-92.
    19. Lokman I. Meho & Kiduk Yang, 2007. "Impact of data sources on citation counts and rankings of LIS faculty: Web of science versus scopus and google scholar," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(13), pages 2105-2125, November.
    20. Kearney, Colm & Liu, Sha, 2014. "Textual sentiment in finance: A survey of methods and models," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 171-185.
    21. Chia-Chun Hsieh & Kai Wai Hui & Yao Zhang, 2016. "Analyst Report Readability and Stock Returns," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1-2), pages 98-130, January.
    22. Lorenzo Patelli & Matteo Pedrini, 2015. "Is Tone at the Top Associated with Financial Reporting Aggressiveness?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 126(1), pages 3-19, January.
    23. Minho So & Jiyoung Kim & Sangki Choi & Han Park, 2015. "Factors affecting citation networks in science and technology: focused on non-quality factors," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 49(4), pages 1513-1530, July.
    24. Martina K Linnenluecke & Mauricio Marrone & Abhay K Singh, 2020. "Conducting systematic literature reviews and bibliometric analyses," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 45(2), pages 175-194, May.
    25. Doris M. Merkl-Davies & Veronika Koller, 2012. "‘Metaphoring’ people out of this world: A Critical Discourse Analysis of a chairman’s statement of a UK defence firm," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(3), pages 178-193, September.
    26. Stephen Dempsey & David Harrison & Kimberly Luchtenberg & Michael Seiler, 2012. "Financial Opacity and Firm Performance: The Readability of REIT Annual Reports," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 450-470, August.
    27. Mehmoona Sharif & Kashif Rashid, 2014. "Corporate governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting: an empirical evidence from commercial banks (CB) of Pakistan," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(5), pages 2501-2521, September.
    28. Shallini Taneja & Pawan Taneja & Rajen Gupta, 2011. "Researches in Corporate Social Responsibility: A Review of Shifting Focus, Paradigms, and Methodologies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 101(3), pages 343-364, July.
    29. Philip Brown & Wendy Beekes & Peter Verhoeven, 2011. "Corporate governance, accounting and finance: A review," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 51(1), pages 96-172, March.
    30. Emmanuelle Negre & Marie-Anne Verdier & Charles H. Cho & Dennis Patten, 2017. "Disclosure strategies and investor reactions to downsizing announcements: A legitimacy perspective," Post-Print halshs-01698634, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yubin Qian & Ya Sun, 2021. "The Correlation Between Annual Reports’ Narratives and Business Performance: A Retrospective Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(3), pages 21582440211, July.
    2. Bassyouny, Hesham & Abdelfattah, Tarek & Tao, Lei, 2022. "Narrative disclosure tone: A review and areas for future research," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    3. Beattie, Vivien, 2014. "Accounting narratives and the narrative turn in accounting research: Issues, theory, methodology, methods and a research framework," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 111-134.
    4. Francisco Díez-Martín & Alicia Blanco-González & Camilo Prado-Román, 2021. "The intellectual structure of organizational legitimacy research: a co-citation analysis in business journals," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 1007-1043, May.
    5. Hugo Baier-Fuentes & José M. Merigó & José Ernesto Amorós & Magaly Gaviria-Marín, 2019. "International entrepreneurship: a bibliometric overview," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 385-429, June.
    6. Gaviria-Marin, Magaly & Merigó, José M. & Baier-Fuentes, Hugo, 2019. "Knowledge management: A global examination based on bibliometric analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 194-220.
    7. Serhat Burmaoglu & Ozcan Saritas, 2019. "An evolutionary analysis of the innovation policy domain: Is there a paradigm shift?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(3), pages 823-847, March.
    8. Rickly, Jillian M., 2022. "A review of authenticity research in tourism: Launching the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on authenticity," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    9. Xin Xu & Feng Xiong & Zhe An, 2023. "Using Machine Learning to Predict Corporate Fraud: Evidence Based on the GONE Framework," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 186(1), pages 137-158, August.
    10. Leung, Sidney & Parker, Lee & Courtis, John, 2015. "Impression management through minimal narrative disclosure in annual reports," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 275-289.
    11. Borchert, Philipp & Coussement, Kristof & De Weerdt, Jochen & De Caigny, Arno, 2024. "Industry-sensitive language modeling for business," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 315(2), pages 691-702.
    12. Renato Camodeca & Alex Almici & Umberto Sagliaschi, 2018. "Sustainability Disclosure in Integrated Reporting: Does It Matter to Investors? A Cheap Talk Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-34, November.
    13. Berkin, Anil & Aerts, Walter & Van Caneghem, Tom, 2023. "Feasibility analysis of machine learning for performance-related attributional statements," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    14. Rui Qiu & Shuhua Hou & Xin Chen & Zhiyi Meng, 2021. "Green aviation industry sustainable development towards an integrated support system," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(5), pages 2441-2452, July.
    15. Grueso Gala, Melanie & Camisón Zornoza, César, 2022. "A bibliometric analysis of the literature on non-financial information reporting: Review of the research and network visualization," Cuadernos de Gestión, Universidad del País Vasco - Instituto de Economía Aplicada a la Empresa (IEAE).
    16. Xinxin Wang & Zeshui Xu & Yong Qin, 2022. "Structure, trend and prospect of operational research: a scientific analysis for publications from 1952 to 2020 included in Web of Science database," Fuzzy Optimization and Decision Making, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 649-672, December.
    17. Xue Xiao & Martin Skitmore & Heng Li & Bo Xia, 2019. "Mapping Knowledge in the Economic Areas of Green Building Using Scientometric Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-22, August.
    18. Qiu, Rui & Hou, Shuhua & Meng, Zhiyi, 2021. "Low carbon air transport development trends and policy implications based on a scientometrics-based data analysis system," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-10.
    19. Rongrong Li & Feng Ren & Qiang Wang, 2024. "China–US scientific collaboration on sustainable development amidst geopolitical tensions," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-19, December.
    20. Zhongtian Li & Jing Jia & Larelle J. Chapple, 2022. "Textual characteristics of corporate sustainability disclosure and corporate sustainability performance: evidence from Australia," Meditari Accountancy Research, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 31(3), pages 786-816, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:qualqt:v:56:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s11135-021-01135-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.