THE CORPORATE REPORT AND THE PRIVATE SHAREHOLDER: LEE AND TWEEDIE TWENTY YEARS ON
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关键词：CORPORATE REPORTPRIVATE SHAREHOLDERLEETWEEDIE TWENTY

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THE CORPORATE REPORT AND THE PRIVATE SHAREHOLDER: LEE AND TWEEDIE TWENTY YEARS ON
SUSAN A. BARTLETT & ROY A. CHANDLER
CardiV Business School
The corporate annual report is seen as an important device for communication between
management and shareholders (and others). Research by Lee and Tweedie during the
1970s produced evidence to suggest that many parts of the corporate annual report
were neither well read nor well understood by private shareholders. Since then much
has been done to change the face of corporate reporting, e.g. the introduction of a
cash flow statement, a statement of recognized gains and losses and an operating and
financial review. In addition, following the Cadbury Report recommendations, there
are statements of responsibilities of directors and auditors. The auditors’ report is now
considerably longer than before following the publication of SAS 600. Providing
shareholders with more information involves substantial costs but it might be argued
that this has been worthwhile if it has improved the readership and understanding of
the annual report.
This paper reports the findings of a study into private shareholder readership of the
corporate report of one company. It seeks, through a partial replication of the Lee and
Tweedie studies, to determine the extent to which the modern annual report is read
by shareholders, and to see whether the new forms of financial statements in particular
are read. The results of this study reveal that, from the point of view of the private
shareholder, little has changed over the past 20 years, despite the eVorts of the
accounting profession and the corporate community to improve communication
between management and shareholders.
Ó 1997 Academic Press Limited
INTRODUCTION
Twenty years ago, Lee & Tweedie (1975a, 1975b, 1976, 1977) conducted
surveys of private shareholders in two UK companies and found that, in
both cases, the majority appeared to pay little attention to many parts of
the annual report. The two studies by Lee and Tweedie (henceforth L&T)
were conducted at a time of considerable concern about the quality of
The authors are grateful to the Research Board of the ICAEW for funding of the project.
Correspondence should be addressed to: S. A. Bartlett, Accounting and Finance Section, CardiV
Business School, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive, CardiV CF1 3EU.
Received 11 July 1995; revised 17 February 1996; accepted 3 September 1996
0890–8389/97/030245+17 $25.00/0 ba960044 Ó 1997 Academic Press Limiteds. a. bartlett & r. a. chandler 246
financial reporting and significant change within the financial reporting
environment. The fact that much has changed within the financial reporting
environment makes it particularly appropriate to revisit and re-test the L&T
approach in a modern day setting.
1
The annual report is seen by the accounting profession as an important
device for financial communication between management and shareholders
(and others). The appearance of the financial section of the annual report
has changed significantly following, for example, the introduction of the
cash flow report, the statement of recognized gains and losses and the
operating and financial review (OFR). In addition, following the Cadbury
Report recomme