Financial disclosure and narrative information: An updated bibliographic survey

Abstract

The research on the quality of annual reports, and in their narrative information segment moreover, has long been underestimated, mainly due to the lack of indicators that allow objective measurement and analysis of business narrative information. This research directed towards the identification, recording and understanding, through an extensive review of the relevant literature, searching for the critical dimensions and factors in the thematic area of narrative information, which enhances transparency and corporate governance for globalized operating firms. Likewise, focuses on searching through the most important bibliographic review from Scopus Documents database, with the use of key words. The search refers to some 1,217 references from the years 1971-2017, by international journals, books and book chapters, conference papers and reviews. With the use of an appropriate algorithm, we search for words with the highest frequency of occurrence in Abstracts’ Keywords sections, that portray a density factor for relevant scientific research and seek to locate major research gaps for analysts of narrative information in firms’ financial statements. Also, the study identifies the current research trends focused on the subject field, while listing the top published research papers in International Journals as well as portraying a spatial-regional analysis for published researches’ origin. The findings are of interest to both scholars and decision makers including providers of corporate governance indexes, analysts, academics and rating agencies.