Impress through portraiture photographs: The case of Malaysian award winning annual reports over time

Photograph represents an important form of information presentation in corporate annual reports.The inclusion of photographs is able to add colours to a dull and uninteresting annual report, and transform it into a more engaging, colourful, and visually attractive document. Photographs, particularly portraiture photographs, allow management to convey intended messages more effectively perhaps, than words.The annual report, in the past few decades, has evolved from a financially-driven document to one used to construct a corporate image, to the extent that financial statements are relegated to a technical “appendix”.The front half of the report is used to influence and manage the way in which the information is presented to readers.This study examines a total of 1,177 portraiture photographs in 36 NACRA best presentation annual reports 2000 – 2010 inclusive.It was found that a portrait of a male is significantly more than those portrayed a female and a mixed gender.Our finding reveals the existence of gender bias in portraiture photographs and also the management attempt to manage viewers’ perception.This study not only enriches the accounting literature on voluntary disclosures and impression management involving photographs, but also potentially benefits the companies in developing their future photographic presentation strategies