Readability of annual reports: Western versus Asian evidence ‐ a comment to contexualize

Contextualizes some of the issues raised by an article by Courtis in AAAJ 1995. Readability, which measures syntactical difficulty, should be distinguished from understandability, which measures comprehensibility. Courtis’s results, which are suggestive (but not conclusive) of a link between readability and profitability are consistent with several other recent readability studies. In addition, his results are consistent with several content analytic studies suggestive of a lack of neutrality in managements’ presentation of accounting narratives. Prior readability studies are shown to provide new information about inter‐country readability differences and the differential readability of differing sections of the annual report. Courtis’s research on English versions of Hong Kong corporate reports raises interesting questions on the use of such texts in countries where English is not the native language.