Narrative Disclosures in Corporate Financial Reports:Emerging Trends

Abstract

Narrative reporting stands for critical contextual information that is reported alongside the main financial statements so as to provide a broader and more meaningful understanding of a company's business, its financial performance and health, market position, strategy, with opportunities and threats. There is a growing body of opinion that the ability of the statutory financial statements to satisfy the information needs of investors and other stakeholders has declined over time. Efforts are now being made to bring about qualitative improvement in corporate reporting through the expansion of its information base. It is narrative reporting which is increasingly being viewed as a communication tool that companies can use to bring about greater transparency in their external reporting. This study is about the necessity of narrative disclosures by companies in their annual reports. It is focused on voluntary narratives, which are defined as those parts of the annual reports not mandated by the Companies Act requirements and not reported on as part of the audit report. Such disclosure narratives include, among other things, the chairman's statement, chief executive's review, social and environmental reports, and risk disclosures. So the paper will explore the concept of narrative disclosures and examine their usefulness in enhancing the quality of corporate reporting.