#64257;cant at least at the 5% level. Accounting experience
as a variable produced a diVerence only in relation to the readership of the
financial statements (significant at the 5% level).
The size of respondents’ portfolios does not appear to impact on the
degree to which the financial statements are read. However, significant
relationships were revealed for the corporate governance, narrative and
miscellaneous categories; wider readership is positively associated with
portfolio size. Following from this, it might be posited that the larger the
size of the shareholding in the surveyed company, the greater would be the
degree of reading of the company’s annual report. Statistical analysis was
undertaken to test this hypo
thesis, but even though positive correlations
were found between the size of shareholding and the extent of reading,
none were significant even at the 10% level.
Other information sources
We asked respondents to indicate which other sources of information they
read. The findings are shown in Table 3 below.
It can be seen from Table 3 that financial press reports are the most
widely read. Listed companies are permitted5
to issue summary financials. a. bartlett & r. a. chandler 256
TABLE 3
Readership of diVerent sources of information
Read thoroughly (%) Read briefly (%) Do not read at all (%)
B&C L&T L&T B&C L&T L&T B&C L&T L&T
1996 1975 1977 1996 1975 1977 1996 1975 1977
Financial press reports 40·8 52·4 54 40·9 38·8 39 18·3 7·5 7
Summary annual financial statements 22·5 47·9 29·6
Interim financial statements 21·1 38·2 32 50·7 41·4 48 28·2 19 20
Preliminary announcements 21·1 36·6 42·3
Stockbrokers’ reports 25·4 31 31 31·0 33·2 27 43·6 34·5 42
Teletext or other TV media 14·1 29·6 56·3
Full Annual Reports 9·8 63·4 26·8
Datastream or other computer software – 2·8 97·2
Note: in answer to an open-ended question about other sources of information, the most common response was ‘friends or relatives’.the corporate report and the private shareholder 257
statements which, by their nature, are more likely to be read thoroughly
than the full annual reports; it would appear, however, that the readership
in total is not as great. This could be an availability issue; Gray & Roberts
(1993, p. 18) claim that only a small minority of companies currently oVer
shareholders summary financial statements, and predict that the number is
unlikely to increase significantly in the near future. However, recent changes
to the rules governing summary reports are intended to increase the avail-
ability of summaries, a development which seems to be aimed at meeting
the needs of ordinary private shareholders.
6
Listed companies are obliged to issue interim statements.
7
Interim state-
ments appear to attract a readership similar to that of summary financial
statements. These documents again contain summarized information which
may explain their fairly broad readership. However, Hussey &Woolfe (1994,
p. 98) report that, based on interviews with 50 individual shareholders,
there was little indication that interims were of any use to investors (even
to those with accounting knowledge).
Listed companies are also expected to publish preliminary announcements
once they hav
本论文由英语论文网提供整理,提供论文代写,英语论文代写,代写论文,代写英语论文,代写留学生论文,代写英文论文,留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。