A Longitudinal Study of the Readability of the Chairman's Narratives in the Corporate Reports of a UK Company

This paper outlines an investigation of the readability of the chairman's narratives, as determined by the Flesch score, of a limited company's corporate reports from 1952–1985. It supports earlier studies which demonstrated that corporate reports were difficult to read, and had become more difficult to read over time. Turnover and readability were significantly negatively correlated. There also seemed to be a decrease in readability associated with the firm becoming a public limited company.