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Telling the Investment Story: A Narrative Analysis of Shareholder Reports

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Narrative analysis helps us better understand how writers handle complex business communication challenges. This study analyzed shareholder reports of equity mutual funds whose total returns were high in absolute terms, but low in relative terms. These reports were complex in that the returns were ambiguous and, although the subject matter was technical, the readership was broad. Narrative analysis reveals that mixed-return shareholder reports use a nonlinear hyperstruc ture, dramatize ideas through contrasting narrators, embed a variety of subgenres, and complement verbal with visual discourse in order to make readers active par ticipants in constructing the investment story. Readers' responses to these reports depends not only on their intellectual understanding, but also on their emotional interaction with the narrator personae and visual symbolism. The discourse tex ture, the underlying fabula, and the story affect how readers experience a text. Applied similarly, narrative analysis could elucidate other business communication genres, principles, problems, and questions.

Key Words: Annual Reports • Financial Reports • Genre • Hyperstructure • Narrative

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