This study examines the social and environmental disclosures of BHP Ltd (one of the largest Australian companies) from 1983 to 1997 to ascertain the extent and type of annual report social and environmental disclosures over the period, and whether such disclosures can be explained by the...

Little is known of the actualities or possibilities of corporate social reporting in Thailand. This study aims to move towards an appreciation of this neglected but important area. This survey focuses on the annual reports of Thai companies, and thereby contributes to a tradition of related...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the process of social reporting as a proactive management strategy to bridge the divide between the social and the economic. Design/methodology/approach – In July 2002 British American Tobacco (BAT) launched its first social report coinciding...

Purpose – This paper aims to explain why public sector performance reporting that emphasises external accountability may turn out differently from the official stated aims. Design/methodology/approach – Using a comparative case method, two different accountability innovations are examined...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to formulate an analytical model for interpreting photographs in accountability statements from Barthes' celebrated theoretical work on photography, La chambre claire ; to offer a study of the communication of accountability by an NGO through the first...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of corporate processes for developing a sustainability report, the hurdles faced by organisations and the way in which organisational change towards improved accountability occurs and can lead to changes in...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine risk disclosures by UK companies within their annual reports. Tests are performed to measure the level of the readability of the risk disclosures and to assess whether directors are deliberately obscuring bad risk news....

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to add to theoretical and empirical work on the rhetoric of narratives and pictures in annual reporting by using the lens of repetition to examine the Annual Reviews of British Telecommunications (BT) plc. Design/methodology/approach – The study...

Purpose – The aim of the paper is to describe and explain, using a combination of interviews and content analysis, the social and environmental reporting practices of a major garment export organisation within a developing country. Design/methodology/approach – Senior executives from a major...

Purpose – Annual reporting has moved from the conveyance of “simple” accounting numbers and more towards narrative, graphical, pictorial and broader aesthetic content conveyance. At the same time, there has been a small but growing discussion of the work of Emmanuel Levinas and Zygmunt...