IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/accfor/v24y2000i3p231-247.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The annual report: an exercise in ignorance?

Author

Listed:
  • Linda Simpson

Abstract

The connection between the informative function of company annual reports and the maintenance of ignorance in society would traditionally be regarded as remote. In this paper it is argued, however, that the use of imagery in company annual reports is linked to maintaining levels of ignorance in society which are essential for companies to maintain their existence, and for society to maintain stability and order. Further, the connection between societal ignorance and the objectives of accounting education are briefly discussed. The paper concludes that in an environment of increasing regulatory requirements for disclosure and transparency, companies may be seeking to maintain ignorance, distract the reader and blur some facts through the use of imagery, in order that competition, and the survival of the company is maintained.

Suggested Citation

  • Linda Simpson, 2000. "The annual report: an exercise in ignorance?," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 231-247, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:accfor:v:24:y:2000:i:3:p:231-247
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-6303.00039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/1467-6303.00039
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-6303.00039?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.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jill Hooks & Natasja Steenkamp & Ross Stewart, 2010. "Interpreting pictorial messages of intellectual capital in company media," Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 7(3), pages 353-378, August.
    2. Doris M. Merkl-Davies & Niamh M. Brennan, 2011. "A conceptual framework of impression management: new insights from psychology, sociology and critical perspectives," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(5), pages 415-437, December.
    3. Quick, Reiner & Sayar, Sanjar, 2024. "The effect of tone, signature, and visual elements in compliance management systems disclosures on financial analysts’ decisions," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:accfor:v:24:y:2000:i:3:p:231-247. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/racc .

    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.