Narrative disclosure tone: A review and areas for future research

Bassyouny, Hesham; Abdelfattah, Tarek; Tao, Lei

Abstract

Numerous studies have examined Narrative Disclosure Tone (NDT) in different channels of financial reporting over the past decade. Our review of 64 studies aims to analyze tone measurements and areas of debate in NDT literature and to suggest avenues for future research. First, we discuss previous studies that compared tone measures based on alternative wordlists and found that tone measures using domain-specific dictionaries are more powerful than those based on general dictionaries. Future research should benefit from the advanced methods considering natural language processing mechanisms and the meanings rather than word frequency for more accuracy. Second, from the theoretical perspective, studies that linked psychological theories to the tone context are limited. Therefore, we call for more evidence from the upper echelons theory that considers the interdependencies between executives. Finally, we critically review different directions of NDT studies and highlight areas for future research. Mainly, we suggest future research to investigate the determinants of NDT in the areas of top managers-specific characteristics, tax avoidance, audit quality, social capital, and regulatory bodies. We call for more research about tone consistency among different channels of disclosures in companies’ communications with stakeholders.

Citation

Bassyouny, H., Abdelfattah, T., & Tao, L. (2022). Narrative disclosure tone: A review and areas for future research. Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, 49, Article 100511. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intaccaudtax.2022.100511

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 28, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Nov 22, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022-12
• Deposit Date: Nov 14, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 23, 2024
• Journal: Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation
• Print ISSN: 1061-9518
• Electronic ISSN: 1879-1603
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 49
• Article Number: 100511
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intaccaudtax.2022.100511
• Keywords: Narrative Disclosure Tone; Narrative Reporting; Textual Analysis; Finance; Accounting
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/13741627
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1061951822000660
• Additional Information: Article Title: Narrative disclosure tone: A review and areas for future research; Journal Title: Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intaccaudtax.2022.100511