The Utility of Annual Reports: An International Study
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INTRODUCTION
*Lucia S. Chang is Professor of Accounting at Florida InternationalUniversity.She is the author of several monographs and many articles in the areas of financial and international accounting. **Kenneth S. Most is Professor of Accounting at Florida International University. He is a prolific author of articles and books on accounting, finance, and related subjects. ***Carlos W. Brain is Assistant Professor of Statistics at Florida InternationalUniversity. He has consulted in different disciplines including business, biology, and engineering and has published articles in the area of statistical methodology.
Journal of International Business Studies, Spring/Summer 1983 63
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RESEARCH A questionnaire survey of some 4,000 individual investors, 900 institutional inves-
DESIGNAND tors and 900 financial analysts was performed in the 3 countries mentioned earMETHODOLOGY lier, starting in 1976. All these countries have large capital markets and well-
organized stock exchanges that function similarly. Inthe United States, a mailing list of individualinvestors was purchased from a list company and was warranted to be randomly selected from a master list of U.S. individual investors. The U.S. institutional investors were randomly selected from various directories and the financial analysts from the professional directory of that group. Contemporaneous with the U.S. survey, Professor Ali C. Osman of the Polytechnic of North London,England, conducted a parallel survey of the 3 user groups in the United Kingdom. Individualinvestors were randomly selected from the share registers of 3 large public companies: a sugar refiner, a manufacturer of industrial gases, and a bank. Questionnaires were sent also to investment managers (institutional investors) and investment analysts (financial analysts), selected in a manner similar to their U.S. counterparts. Also contemporaneous with the U.S. survey, Professor William J. Cotton of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand conducted an identical survey in that country. Individualinvestors were randomly selected from the records of a New Zealand firm which maintains registers for a number of public corporations in that country. The 169 institutional investors and 142 financial analysts were all the members of those groups in that country. The same questionnaire, with minor changes to accommodate differences in the group surveyed, was sent to the populations identified. Two of the individual investors' questionnaire items are appended to this paper. These questions were designed to elicit views on both the importance which the 3 groups placed on financial statements as a source of information for investment decisions and also on the perceived usefulness of this information source. Other questions were designed to provide some 10 investor/analyst characteristics grouped in 3 categories: personal (age, income, and so on),
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