Previous research on the readability of annual reports is based mainly on English narratives and has found them difficult to read. Although the results of such research cannot be generalized to different contexts, accounting narratives written in non-English languages have seldom been analyzed in this respect. More important, few studies have longitudinally examined the evolution in readability of such narratives. This study focuses on the readability evolution of annual report narratives written in Spanish, applying an adapted version of the Flesch readability formula to two sets of documents from different companies over most of the years of the 20th century. The results confirm that the reports are indeed difficult to read but show an improvement in readability over the years. The study tested several variables that might influence readability, including profitability.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to longitudinally analyse the evolution of multiple narrative textual characteristics in the chairman’s statements of Guinness from 1948 to 1996, with the aim of studying impression management influences. It attempts to contribute insights on impression management over time. Design/methodology/approach: The paper attempts to contribute to external accounting communication literature, by building on the socio-psychological tradition within the functionalist-behavioural transmission perspective. The paper analyses multiple textual characteristics (positive, negative, tentative, future and external references, length, numeric references and first person pronouns) over 49 years and their potential relationship to profitability. Other possible disclosure drivers are also controlled. Findings: The findings show that Guinness consistently used qualitative textual characteristics with a self-serving bias, but did not use those with a more quantitative character. Continual profits achieved by the company, and the high corporate/personal reputation of the company/chairpersons, inter alia, may well explain limited evidence of impression management associated with quantitative textual characteristics. The context appears related to the evolution of the broad communication pattern. Practical implications: Impression management is likely to be present in some form in corporate disclosures of most companies, not only those companies with losses. If successful, financial reporting quality may be undermined and capital misallocations may result. Companies with a high public exposure such as those with a high reputation or profitability may use impression management in a different way. Originality/value: Studies analysing multiple textual characteristics in corporate narratives tend to focus on different companies in a single year, or in two consecutive years. This study analyses multiple textual characteristics over many consecutive years. It also gives an original historical perspective, by studying how impression management relates to its context, as demonstrated by a unique data set. In addition, by using the same company, the possibility that different corporate characteristics between companies will affect results is removed. Moreover, Guinness, a well-known international company, was somewhat unique as it achieved continual profits.

This study analyzes how learning about social responsibility (SR) can modify the perceptions of university students about the importance of responsible behavior on the part of companies. To this end, a questionnaire was designed and administered to Management Accounting students before (n = 128) and after (n = 71) receiving two training activities on SR. The descriptive results obtained testify to the importance of SR in the views of the sampled students, both before and after receiving the specific learning in SR. In this latter moment, students demonstrated a vision highly committed to the need for SR to be part of the economic agenda. The results also show that there was a significant change in the perception of SR and its implications in terms of benefits and costs before and after receiving the training. All of this suggests that SR training has partially modified students’ perceptions of SR. This paper provides important insights that could be leveraged by university and business school managers for the purpose of designing or modifying curricula related to SR. At the same time, it evaluates the potential of SR learning as a tool for modifying attitudes.

Stakeholder theory explains organizational responses to changing demands from constituents. Almost all accounting research drawing on stakeholder theory addresses social responsibility issues. In contrast, we examine how our focal firm, the Spanish tobacco monopoly, responded to stakeholders' demands through its annual reports over the century 1887–1986, that is, from the privatization of the firm's administration to the loss of monopolistic conditions as a consequence of Spain's entry into the European Economic Community. Our findings reveal how these reports reflected the changing importance of different categories of stakeholders as well as the alignment of financial reporting with organisational responses to stakeholders' demands. Throughout this period the firm's major strategic stakeholder was the state, and the dramatic changes in Spanish forms of government, as well as a change in the state's status vis-à-vis the firm (until 1945 as lessor of the monopoly, and thereafter also as a major shareholder) affected the amount and type of financial information in these reports; however, the strategy remained generally proactive until 1945 and accommodative thereafter. The other strategic stakeholder was the workers, and equally dramatic changes in Spanish labour activism affected the reporting of worker welfare programmes. After Spain's democratization, society in general became a more important stakeholder, and reports began to address tobacco-related health concerns.

This article examines the evolution of the information provided by El Alcázar , a private Spanish company, over the period 1928–1993. This information includes: Memoria , that is, qualitative information contained in the annual report, which is a Management Report to shareholders; the minutes of the Board of Directors; and the minutes of the Shareholder General Meeting. We apply a longitudinal thematic content analysis with the aim of understanding how the content of these documents adapts to the different institutional settings experienced by the company. Following Meyer (1986), different environments may determine the amount of accounting information a particular company produces beyond the variation determined by its intrinsic technical needs. The period studied bears witness to a number of relevant institutional conditions involving deep social, economic, cultural and political changes. The results show that these documents change between the stages identified in response to the pressures of different institutional environments.