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Most of the research on children’s consumer behavior focuses on pre-purchase processes, with brand choice typically being the last stage investigated. This paper aims to examine the outcome of children’s purchase decisions, with an emphasis on dissatisfaction and outcome resolution. Of particular interest was the comprehension level of the corporate communication and the extent to which clear, understandable communication influenced children’s ultimate satisfaction.

Eighty-seven children wrote authentic letters of complaint to manufacturers about a recent product purchase. The study examined what happened after the children complained – i.e. how companies responded to children, and how satisfied children were with the resolution and the overall complaint handling process. Two widely regarded readability formulas were used to measure the complexity of the written correspondence.

The present study suggests that child complainants are the most concerned with the bottom-line results of their communication efforts. Like adults, they want the problem corrected. Unfortunately, the majority of children did not feel fully satisfied with the corporate complaint handling process. Over one-third of the companies in the sample did not even bother to respond to children’s legitimate complaints, despite the fact that each child specifically asked the company to write back. Those firms which did were more likely to respond with a letter only than with a letter plus add-on. And the corporate letters, by and large, were written at an educational level which would preclude full understanding by the child.

Because consumer complaint behavior is not randomly distributed in the population, the use of probability sampling was precluded. Published studies which have used consumer complaint letters as the data collection method have relied primarily on convenience sampling. In the present study, judgmental sampling was used to select children participants. Three criteria were applied. Children had to be aged between 10 and 13 years. Children had to have experienced dissatisfaction with a product purchase made over the previous six months. Children could not have taken any public action to resolve their dissatisfaction. But they had to be willing to write a letter of complaint at this point. It was considered of utmost importance that the letters used in this study be authentic. They had to be composed and penned by the children themselves. This criterion, coupled with the fact that the complaints were legitimate, avoided the obvious ethical dilemma associated with the use of fabricated letters.

It seems ironic that in the present era of consumer consciousness, corporations do not place greater emphasis on truly communicating with their customers, where communication is viewed as a process of establishing shared meaning. How can there be shared meaning when the message sender fails to consider the characteristics of the receiver – characteristics such as age and cognitive development? Businesses may argue that their corporate communication policies and practices are based on a concern for cost efficiency. This argument carries little merit, unfortunately. Even the federal government, through the Plain Writing Act of 2010, acknowledges the importance of using common, everyday words and plain English in all written documents.

On the surface, American businesses state that they welcome customer feedback. The comments of children are more sought after now than ever before, particularly in the area of advertising and new product development. But the results of this study show that companies have a long way to go before they can claim to be truly receiver-oriented in their managerial communication policies. Perhaps this is why consumers – certainly child consumers – are only beginning to believe that when kids complain, companies will respond.

The vast body of complaint research focuses almost exclusively on adults. Despite their sophistication and marketing literacy, children are not miniature adults. It is not known whether the same models and findings with respect to adult complaint behavior apply to children. Unfortunately, there are very few studies of children’s complaint behavior and corporate responses.

The aim of this paper is to review some of the findings in the field of readability research. First, the differences in meaning between the terms ‘readability’ and ‘legibility’ are discussed. Next, the origins and developments of readability formulas are examined in detail. Then, the best‐known formulas for English language material are described so as to give the reader a brief overview of what has been achieved in this field of research. Finally, the principal applications of these formulas are described.

This paper aims to introduce the emerging artificial-intelligence-based readability metrics (Coh-Metrix) to examine the effects of firm size on audit proposal readability.

Coh-Metrix readability measures use emerging computation linguistics technology to better assess document readability. These metrics measure co-relations of words, sentences and paragraphs on multi-dimensions rather than adopting the unidimensional “bag of words” approach that examines words in isolation. Using eight Coh-Metrix orthogonal principal component factors, the authors analyze the Chang and Stone (2019) data set comprised of 370 hand-collected audit proposals submitted by audit firms for the US state and local governments’ audit service contracts.

Audit firm size has a significant impact on the readability of audit proposals. Specifically, as measured by the traditional readability metric, the proposals from smaller firms are more readable than those submitted by larger firms. Furthermore, decomposed readability metrics indicate that smaller firm proposals evidence stronger (deep) text cohesion, whereas larger firm proposals evidence a stronger narrative structure and higher connectivity (relational indicators) among proposal elements. Unlike the traditional readability metric, however, the emergent readability metrics are uncorrelated with auditor selection.

Work remains to develop and validate Coh-Metrix measures that are specific to the context of accounting and auditing practice. Future research can use emerging readability measures to examine various textual features (e.g. text cohesion) in finance or accounting related documents.

The results provide practitioners with insight into the proposal writing strategies and practices of larger and smaller firms. In addition, the results highlight the differing audit firm selection outcomes from traditional and Coh-Metrix readability metrics.

This study introduces new data and holistic readability measures to the auditing literature.

This paper aims to examine and critique the accounting literature's dominant readability formula, the Flesch formula. Furthermore, the paper sets out to propose refinement and augmentation to the formula with a view to expanding its applicability and relevance to researchers' attempts at better understanding and critiquing the effectiveness of accounting communications. This aim extends to setting a more robust foundation for informing policymakers' and practitioners' interest in implementing more effective communications with their target stakeholders.

The paper offers an historically informed methodological critique of the current articulation and application of the Flesch formula, both generally and in accounting research. This critique forms the basis for developing proposed revisions and supplementary measures to augment Flesch's coverage. These are presented with sample empirics.

Illustrative examples suggest that it is feasible and desirable to apply a revised formula that reduces Flesch's misplaced emphasis on word length by respecifying its sentence length variable, a probable cause of low readability. A reader attribute score further enhances the formula by integrating the considerable impact of readers' attributes on readability and accounting communication effectiveness. Supplementary measures, comprising non‐narrative communications dimensions, are introduced as a foundation for further research.

The paper provides not only critique but also refinement and augmentation of the much used Flesch readability formula for accounting communications research. It offers a first stage approach to encompassing potentially important communication elements such as readers' attributes, tables, graphs and headings, to date critiqued as potentially important but left unattended by accounting researchers. This offers the prospect of extending Flesch's application to contemporary accounting communications issues and questions.

This paper aims to examine the effects of firm size on audit proposal readability and audit proposal readability on auditor selection using readability metrics.

Adopting the Flesch reading ease readability formula, the authors analyze the readability of 370 hand-collected audit proposals submitted by audit firms for US state and local governments’ audit service contracts.

The authors find differences in readability across audit firm size, specifically the proposals written by smaller firms are more readable than those submitted by larger firms. The results further indicate that readability metrics correlate with auditor selection, i.e. an increase in audit proposal readability from the first to third quartile improves the likelihood of a firm winning the engagement by about 6 per cent, ceteris paribus. In addition, while audit fees and an existing auditor–client relationship are associated with engagement success, proxies for audit quality (i.e. audit firm size, audit experience of lead partner) are not.

The Flesch reading ease measure is a simple linear combination of text attributes, which assumes that readability is a single, unidimensional construct. Simple readability metrics, such as the Flesch reading ease, may confound environmental complexity with readability.

Readability improves audit proposal success.

The results provide insight to accounting stakeholders regarding the potential influence of readability on audit firm selection. In short, readability matters.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between disclosure quality, measured by the readability of the board of directors’ report and cost of capital (CoC), and, second, attempt to investigate the moderating effect of earnings quality on the relationship between readability and CoC.

The sample includes the Egyptian EGX 100 companies, listed from 2013 to 2015, and the study runs two ordinary least square models to test the two main hypotheses. The study applies the LIX formula to calculate the readability level of board of director’ reports and uses the weighted average CoC to calculate CoC. Moreover, the performance-adjusted modified Jones model is used to measure earnings quality.

The results indicate that in the Egyptian context the readability of board of director’ reports does not impact on CoC. In addition, after moderating by earnings quality, there is a significant association between readability and CoC. The interaction between earnings quality and readability has a significant impact on CoC. This finding is consistent with the notion that, conditional on earnings quality, the benefits of easy writing style in the annual reports, prepared by the company’s managers, are reflected in the reduction of CoC.

Based on the limited literature relating to developing countries’ capital markets, this study contributes to the accounting literature by providing empirical evidence on the conditional effect of earnings quality and of the consequences of linguistics style in the emerging market.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between the readability of annual reports and corporate performance in Qatari listed firms while controlling for a firm’s competitive position, governance structure and specific features such as size, age and industry type.

This study relies on both agency theory and legitimacy theory to develop testable hypotheses. It uses a sample of 126 firm-year listed companies in the Qatar Stock Exchange to test obfuscation in the annual reports through examining the association between the readability of Narrative Disclosures (NDs) and corporate profitability, financial risk and agency costs for the period from 2014-2016.

The findings show that firms with higher annual report readability are more profitable and have lower agency costs, which is an indication of the existence of “obfuscation.” Qatari firms may use narrative complexity as a disclosure strategy to enhance their image and consequently maintain their social legitimacy.

Although the study findings suffer from limited global generalization, they can be generalized across Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Thus, future cross-country research is encouraged.

The findings encourage Qatari policymakers to instate a policy for “Plain English” writing to make NDs easy to read by international investors.

This study is one of very few studies that examines the readability of annual reports in emerging market economies, i.e. Qatar. The study contributes to the paucity of research that examines English-written annual reports in non-English speaking countries.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the presence of variability within the chairman’s address section of the annual report. The coefficiency of variation (V) is used as a simple statistical measure, with calculations based on three Flesch‐based Reading Ease scores from 100‐word passages of 120 annual reports of Hong Kong public companies for 1994/5. Vs range from 4.83 percent to 89.64 percent and 106 companies have Vs greater than 10 percent. Discernible reading ease patterns are shown to be present according to chi‐square tests. Management propensity to obfuscate is introduced in the form of hypotheses, namely, companies with high variability and low readability will be associated with “bad news” and high levels of press coverage, this last variable being introduced into the readability literature for the first time. The obfuscation was accepted for companies with high financial press coverage.

The purpose of this study is to estimate the effect of information disclosure on firm value for firms in the Integrated Latin American Market (MILA) over the period 2011–2017.

The study uses structural equation modeling (SEM), where the latent variable “Disclosure Quality” is measured using five textual analysis variables as indicators. The final sample is composed of 1,412 observations representing 198 firms from which we were able to collect annual reports and financial information required.

The authors find a positive and statistically significant effect of “Disclosure Quality” on firm value. The indirect effect of language on firm value is also captured. Text similarity, negative tone, readability and text length in corporate disclosure are negatively related to firm value while using positive tone is positively related. In the exploratory analysis, the authors have significant effects of textual measures on disclosure quality.

The research is original and unique as it approaches the relation between disclosure quality and market valuation of the firm using SEM for firms participating in the MILA.

El propósito es estimar el efecto de la calidad en la revelación de información sobre el valor de la firma para empresas que hacen parte del mercado integrado Latinoamericano (MILA) durante el periodo 2011–2017.

El estudio utiliza un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales (SEM), donde la variable latente “Calidad de la información” es medida usando cinco variables de análisis textual como indicadores. La muestra final está conpuesta de 1,412 observaciones que representan 198 empresas para las cuales se pudo recolectar los reportes anuales y la información financiera requerida

Nosotros encontramos una relación positiva y estadísticamente significativa entre la variable “Calidad de la información” y valor de la firma. El efecto indirecto del lenguaje en el valor de la firma es igualmente observado. La similaridad en el texto, el tono negativo, la legibilidad y el largo del texto en la revelación corporativa están relacionados de manera negativa con el valor de la firma mientras que el tono positivo está relacionado de manera positiva. En el análisis exploratorio, nosotros encontramos un efecto estadísticamente significativo entre las medidas de texto y la calidad de la revelación.

La investigación es original y única en cuanto aproxima la relación entre calidad de la revelación y desempeño de la firma usando un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales para las firmas participantes del mercado integrado Latinoamericano (MILA).

Locally authored textbooks are used at tertiary South African institutions to assist in marketing research studies. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the readability of locally authored marketing research textbooks in South Africa and compare them with international (USA) texts.

South African marketing research textbooks (authored locally) used at South African institutions were identified. Electronic versions of the textbooks were used and analysed using accepted readability formulae. The same procedure was used with texts produced in the USA and the findings of each were compared.

The South Africa texts scored higher on the Flesch Reading Ease score than US texts, which links to the target audience of these books (undergraduate students), while also being cognisant of the reading skills of the target audience but their score still describes them as “difficult”.

The original formulae and theory tend to be dated, though there are recent studies into readability in other areas of business studies. There are also those that question the applicability of readability formulae in the tertiary environment.

Instructors need to ensure that material is at a suitable reading level to maximise the student's learning. For publishers and authors, this means that the examples and illustrations used need to be linked to the context in which the student lives and functions, and not just focus on the English used in the text.

While studies have been conducted into the readability of US textbooks, there is little published research into the readability of regional marketing research textbooks in other contexts to facilitate comparison.