The Corporate Annual Report: A Photo Analysis of Male and Female Portrayals

Analysis of photographs in the annual reports of 25 airline firms over a six-year period disclosed inconographic portrayal of women in subservient, less-serious roles than men. As an annual report represents the personality and philosophy of the firm, latent messages of sex-role stereotyping should be avoided. Implications of sex-role depictions in business media are discussed and suggestions for further research are offered. The annual report, although highly criticized, remains an integralpart of a firm’s promotion. Many hold that the primary purpose of the annual report is to convey financial information to its publics (Chang & Most, 1979; Hill & Knowlton, 1984). Another major, yet less apparent, function of this report is to convey the personality and philosophy of the firm to readers. These include individual investors, potential customers, institutional investors, professional analysts, the interested public, bankers, leaders in the company’s communities, financial reporters, union members and their leaders, a firm’s sup-pliers, prospective purchasers, consumer groups, and even possible merger or acquisition candidates (Bern, 1982, p. 116; Dunk, 1980