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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the existing disclosure literature by examining the determinants of narrative risk information in the interim reports for a sample of UK non‐financial companies.

This study uses the manual content analysis to measure the level of risk information in interim report narrative sections prepared by 72 UK companies. It also uses the ordinary least squares regression analysis to examine the impact of firm‐specific characteristics and corporate governance mechanisms on narrative risk disclosures.

The empirical analysis shows that large firms are more likely to disclose more risk information in the narrative sections of interim reports. In addition, the analysis shows that industry activity type is positively associated with levels of narrative risk disclosure in interim reports. Finally, the analysis shows statistically insignificant impact of other firm‐specific characteristics (liquidity, gearing, profitability, and cross‐listing) and corporate governance mechanisms on narrative risk disclosure.

The study's findings have practical implications. It informs investors about the characteristics of UK companies that disclose risk information in their interim reports. For example, the findings show that narrative risk disclosures are affected by firm size and industry type rather than firms' risk levels (e.g. financing risk measured by the gearing ratio or liquidity risk measured by lower liquidity ratios). Practical implications for managers from these findings are that, in order to keep investors satisfied, companies with high levels of financing and liquidity risks should look at investors' demands for risk disclosure. This will help investors when making their investment decisions.

The determinants of narrative risk disclosure in interim reports have not been explored so clearly in prior research and, therefore, this paper is the first of its kind to examine this research issue for a sample of UK companies.

This paper aims to analyse the nature and extent of convergence within the literature of the narrative turn in narrative accounting research.

The paper offers an actor–network–theoretic perspective drawing on Latour’s theory of citation and Shwed and Bearman’s development of that theory to analyse patterns of convergence.

The paper finds that across the exemplars of narrative turn research examined, there is only a limited level of epistemic engagement so that exemplars achieve their status without undergoing trials of strength.

The paper argues that the resources of the relevant academic community are spread so thinly that each seam – each research question, methodology or method and research context – is mined by no more than a small handful of researchers unable to generate a meaningful volume of contestation. Steps are suggested to better focus research activity.

The use of Latour’s theory of citation to analyse patterns of convergence in accounting research is innovative. The paper proposes a substantial change in the community’s approach to narrative turn research on accounting narratives.

The purpose of this paper is to extend and improve prior readability and obfuscation research by investigating the effect of connotation on readability and obfuscation. Furthermore, the paper aims to develop and apply a novel connotation‐based obfuscation assessment approach.

In total, 87 chairman reports of firms included in the Standard & Poor's ASX200 index were analyzed. The readability of sections and connotation‐based groups of sentences within these narratives were assessed using the Flesch readability formula. The presence or absence of obfuscation within the analyzed chairman addresses was determined using a novel connotation‐based obfuscation assessment approach.

The study demonstrates that the mid section within the analyzed chairman addresses was significantly more difficult to read than the first and last sections. However, the notion that these reading difficulty differences were due to the prevalence of positive and negative news within these sections could not be supported. A subsequent analysis of the reading difficulty differences between connotation‐based groups of sentences identified the largely positive group of sentences as an important source of reading difficulty. Finally, the advantages resulting from an application of the connotation‐based obfuscation assessment developed in this paper over the traditional obfuscation assessment techniques used in prior literature are demonstrated.

This paper provides a substantial contribution to the literature by establishing a direct link between the connotation of information provided in financial reporting narratives and the readability and obfuscation exhibited by these narratives. The novel assessment approach developed in this paper can be used to benefit preparers and users of financial reporting information by identifying types of sentences whose preparation and/or analysis should be approached cautiously.

Sustainability reporting serves as a means of communication between corporations and their stakeholders on sustainability issues. This study aims to identify and account for the contents of sustainability reporting communicated through the websites of the plants in five continents of the same multinational mining corporation.

This study uses data published by Newmont Mining Corporation. The corporation has regional headquarters in five continents: Africa, Asia, Australia and North America and South America. The data were drawn from the websites of the five plants adjacent to those regional headquarters. Economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainability as reported by each plant were identified; to do so, a disclosure analysis based on the elements of the Global Reporting Initiative and the United Nations Division for Sustainability Development was used. These aspects were then compared and contrasted to highlight if, and to what extent, institutional isomorphism influences variations in sustainability disclosures among plants compared with the parent company.

It was found that most of the reporting about sustainability matters comprises narratives; there were also a few physical measures but very little financial information. Notwithstanding that the websites of all five plants used similar headings, the contents of reports differed. The reports from the plants in Australia, South America and Africa were more comprehensive than those from the plants in Asia and North America. The authors attribute these differences to institutionalisation of location-specific characteristics, including management discretion, legislation and societal pressures influencing sustainability reporting. The authors argue that managers responsible for preparing sustainability reports and who work essentially as sustainability accountants should develop templates and measures to raise the standard and comprehensiveness of reports for improved communication, information and behaviour.

Extant studies on sustainability reporting have focused mainly on comparisons between sustainability reports published by different corporations or sustainability reports published in different years by the same corporation. The authors believe that this is one of the first studies to have examined differences in sustainability information published by different subsidiaries within the same large corporation and the first to show how concurrent disclosures can differ.

The UK private finance initiative (PFI) public policy is heavily criticised. PFI contracts are highly profitable leading to incentives for PFI private-sector companies to support PFI public policy. This contested nature of PFIs requires legitimation by PFI private-sector companies, by means of impression management, in terms of the attention to and framing of PFI in PFI private-sector company annual reports. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

PFI-related annual report narratives of three UK PFI private-sector companies, over seven years and across two periods of significant change in the development of the PFI public policy, are analysed using manual content analysis.

Results suggest that PFI private-sector companies use impression management to legitimise during periods of uncertainty for PFI public policy, to alleviate concerns, to provide credibility for the policy and to legitimise the private sector’s own involvement in PFI.

While based on a sizeable database, the research is limited to the study of three PFI private-sector companies.

The portrayal of public policy in annual report narratives has not been subject to prior research. The research demonstrates how managers of PFI private-sector companies present PFI narratives in support of public policy direction that, in turn, benefits PFI private-sector companies.

We are currently experiencing what is often called the sixth period of mass extinction on planet Earth, caused undoubtedly by the impact of human activities and businesses on nature. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential for accounting and corporate accountability to contribute to extinction prevention. The paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach, weaving scientific evidence and theory into organisational disclosure and reporting in order to demonstrate linkages between extinction, business behaviour, accounting and accountability as well as to provide a basis for developing a framework for narrative disclosure on extinction prevention.

The paper is theoretical and interdisciplinary in approach, seeking to bring together scientific theories of extinction with a need for corporate and organisational accountability whilst recognising philosophical concerns in the extant environmental accounting literature about accepting any business role and capitalist mechanisms in ecological matters. The overarching framework derives from the concept of emancipatory accounting.

The outcome of the writing is to: present an emancipatory “extinction accounting” framework which can be embedded within integrated reports, and a diagrammatic representation, in the form of an “ark”, of accounting and accountability mechanisms which, combined, can assist, the authors argue, in preventing extinction. The authors suggest that the emancipatory framework may also be applied to engagement meetings between the responsible investor community (and non-governmental organisations (NGOs)) and organisations on biodiversity and species protection.

The exploratory extinction accounting and accountability frameworks within this paper should provide a basis for further research into the emancipatory potential for organisational disclosures and mechanisms of governance and accountability to prevent species extinction.

The next steps for researchers and practitioners involve development and implementation of the extinction accounting and engagement frameworks presented in this paper within integrated reporting and responsible investor practice.

As outlined in this paper, extinction of any species of flora and fauna can affect significantly the functioning of local and global ecosystems, the destruction of which can have, and is having, severe and dangerous consequences for human life. Extinction prevention is critically important to the survival of the human race.

This paper represents a comprehensive attempt to explore the emancipatory role of accounting in extinction prevention and to bring together the linkages in accounting and accountability mechanisms which, working together, can prevent species extinction.

The purpose of this paper is to examine “how” the adoption of integrated reporting (IR), and the embedded multiple capitals framework, has influenced organisational reporting practice. In particular, the paper examines how companies report and integrate multiple capitals in various organisational reporting channels following the introduction of an “apply or explain” IR requirement in South Africa.

Using a qualitative case study approach based on discourse analysis, this paper examines various organisational reports including integrated reports, standalone sustainability reports, websites and other online materials of highly regarded, award-winning, integrated reporters in South Africa over a four-year period (2011-2014), following the introduction of IR requirement. The authors draw five impression management techniques, namely, rhetorical manipulation, thematic manipulation, selectivity, emphasis in visual presentation and performance comparisons to explain disclosure and integration of multiple capitals.

The authors find that companies are increasingly conforming to reporting language espoused in existing IR guidelines and multiple capital frameworks over time. For instance, it is found that the research cases have increasingly used specific grammars in existing IR guidelines such as “capitals” and “material” issues, with companies acknowledging the “interdependencies” and “trade-offs” between multiple capitals. Companies have also started to recognise that the capitals are subject to “increases, decreases, and transformations” over time. However, the disclosures are generic, rather than company-specific, and lack substance, often framed in synthetic charming aimed to showcase adoption of IR practice. In addition, the current discourse on multiple capital disclosures is one of the defending, even promoting, organisational reputation, rather than recognising how organisational actions, or inactions, impact multiple capitals. The paper concludes that the emerging IR practice, and the embedded multiple capital framework, has not really improved the substance of organisational reports.

The results of this study have a number of implications for regulatory authorities, public and private sector organisations as well as academic researchers. For regulatory authorities, the results inform relevant regulatory authorities how IR practice is taking shape over time, particularly within the context of a regulatory setting. Second, the empirical analyses, which focused on highly regarded, award-wining, integrated reporters, draw the attention of regulatory bodies as well as users of corporate reports to concerns related to a growing number of rating agencies of organisational reports. Finally, for academic researchers, the theoretical implications of this study is that, given the pervasive use of multiple impression management techniques in various organisational reports, the authors support the notion that corporate disclosure practices should be examined through the lens of multiple theoretical perspectives to enhance our understanding of the nature of organisational reporting practice.

This study provides a more focused preliminary empirical account of the implications of IR practice, and the embedded multiple capital frameworks, on the quality of organisational reporting practice following the adoption of mandatory IR requirement in South Africa.

The objective of this paper is to review the use of the fog index in accounting research.

This paper uses a systematic literature review (SLR) methodology with a sample of 126 accounting research articles. The review applies the theoretical framework of disclosure's stewardship, valuation and accountability roles to identify the contributions and challenges of using the fog index in accounting research.

This paper shows that the primary contribution of the fog index to accounting research relates to the disclosure obfuscation hypothesis (e.g. whether management obfuscates narratives associated with earnings). It also finds that the challenge in using the fog index is in disentangling its measure of firm environmental complexity from narrative obfuscation. Regarding disclosure utility, there is limited evidence on the differential effects of complexity on investor types and whether the fog index findings are associated with narrative obfuscation or firm environmental complexity is driven by investor types.

The authors develop a research database of fog index studies categorised based on contributions to disclosure obfuscation or disclosure utility, highlighting contributions to the stewardship, valuation and accountability roles of disclosures, which researchers can use to develop future studies.

This paper contributes to accounting literature by offering the first comprehensive review on the use of the fog index in accounting research. It offers researchers a consolidated review of the study of linguistic complexity of accounting information and disclosure functions using a theoretical framework that can inform regulators, policymakers and future researchers in designing future research/policy.

The purpose of this paper is to test the performativity of intellectual capital (IC) from the perspective of sell-side analysts, a type of actor who consumes and creates IC information and in whose practice IC information plays a significant role.

The empirical component of the study comprises a narrative analysis of the text of a large corpus of sell-side analysts’ initiation coverage reports. The authors adopt Mouritsen’s (2006) performative and ostensive conceptualisations of IC as the theoretical framework.

The authors find that the identities and properties of IC elements are variable, dynamic and transformative. The relevance of IC elements in the eyes of analysts is conditional on the context, temporally contingent and bestowed indirectly. IC elements are attributed to firm value both directly, in a linear manner, and indirectly, via various non-linear interrelationships established with other IC elements, tangible capital and financial capital.

This study challenges the conventional IC research paradigm and contributes towards a performativity-inspired conceptualisation of IC and a resultant situated model of IC in place of a predictive model.

This is the first study to apply a performative lens to study IC identities, roles and relationships from the perspective of a field of practice that is external to the organisation where IC is hosted. Examining IC from analysts’ perspective is important because not only can it provide an alternative perspective of IC, it also enables an understanding of analysts’ field of practice.