A Study of Narrative Accounting Practices in Indian Steel and Cement Industry
Vol. - 6 No. - 1, Jan-2015 1 A Study of Narrative Accounting Practices in Indian Steel and Cement Industry Shankha Shubhra Bhadra* P. K. Haldar** Abstract In this study an attempt was made to understand the narrative accounting practice in the corporate world for which steel and cement industry was chosen, for which some companies from two industries are selected and their annual reports, sustainability report, news reports were analyzed with help of certain statistical tools, specifically the content of annual reports are analyzed and observed. It was observed that all the company complies with statutory reporting as per accounting standard, SEBI regulation, RBI guidelines and all other statutory requirements, but voluntary reporting varies significantly from company to company, which means -- lesser dissemination of narrative accounting in the annual reports, as there is no framework or standard for such. Keywords: Narrative accounting, narrative accounting practice, voluntary reporting, annual report. Introduction: In this era, there is lots of information disseminated by corporate houses for stakeholders, which are asymmetry in nature, as different firms report differently, some firm communicates with huge volume of information while on the other hand some only maintain the requirement as per Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP); leading to various stakeholders and annual report readers — unsatisfied. Due to such variation in reporting, decision making process sometime, becomes irrelevant and a confusing task. So, satisfying all the stakeholders becomes the prime objective of each and every organization. An annual report plays a role of a liaison, which tries to bridge the gap between annual report readers and management. Therefore annual report has to be prepared and presented in such a way that both the purposes are satisfied viz., to communicate and attract potential investors from management point of view and to be aware of each and every operation of the company—from stakeholders’ point of view.
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