Current Issues in Corporate Reporting: Theory and Practice

Corporate Reporting has expanded out of all recognition from its early beginnings. Now a-days corporate reporting is considered as highly technical multi-statement function, covering a variety of aspects of corporate financial and social activities and thus bearing little resemblance to the crude tabulations which constituted the reports of companies during the first few decades of the corporate history. This book subscribes to the idea that Company financial reporting function should reflect society’s needs and expectations as there is a growing consensus that the concepts of growth and profit as measured by traditional balance sheets and income statements are too narrow to reflect the activities of the companies. An organization, whether profit oriented or welfare oriented, needs to consider both the social and the economic effects of their behaviour. This will necessitate a change in the nature of company reporting which will direct external reports more towards meeting the needs of the society consisting of variety of users with variety of demands for corporate information. This calls for a company’s effort in supplying information covering employee matters, environmental affairs, human assets measurement, social performance, different segments of the business and different bases of measurement in addition to considering the question of preparing understanding reports. The present work with a sample of 100 companies’ annual reports (representing 40 Indian Public Sector, 40 Private Sector and 20 Foreign Companies) investigates the current reporting practices in some of the emerging areas, viz. The issue of comprehensibility of written messages contained in the reports has also been dealt with. This book will be useful to Post-Graduate students, researchers and professionals in this field.