Contextual Non-financial Analysis of Annual Reports of Slovak, Turkish and Ukrainian Companies

Abstract

Research background: Various sources of information are available to assess possible and future financial results for stakeholders. The annual reports of companies should also include information on the risks of the environment in which the company operates and doing business. Textual analysis of annual reports can assess behavioral aspects of accounting as a source of information for decision-making. Purpose of the article: With the growing range of annual reports being observed, or the growing interest of investors or analysts in the non-financial information from annual reports stakeholders find annual reports in support of their decisions. Methods: For the purposes of comparison, we selected companies from the growing economy of the Slovak Republic, Turkey and country at war, Ukraine. In our paper we examined whether the tone and structure of language applied in annual reports changed over time alongside the changing economic growth in the country and whether there are any differences in narrative disclosure between Slovak, Turkish and Ukrainian companies. Then we compared the results obtained in order to propose reliable recommendations and tested whether it is possible to detect uncertainty of business environment in annual reports or companies by textual analysis. Findings & Value added: Based on our results we conclude that non-financial “narrative” data could also correlate with changing GDP growth of the country. The annual reports are to point out the reality without distortion, which was confirmed to us in the analysis.

Keywords

• annual reports
• textual analysis
• narrative information