Telling the Story of Danisco’s Annual Reports (1935 Through 2007-2008) From a Communicative Perspective

Journal of Business and Technical Communication Jan 2012

Telling the Story of Danisco’s Annual Reports (1935 Through 2007-2008) From a Communicative Perspective

Marianne Grove Ditlevsen Aarhus University

Abstract

This article documents the evolution of the annual reports of the Danish company Danisco A/S from 1935 through 2007-2008. Compared to previous diachronic studies of annual reports, this study offers a finer grained description from a communicative perspective over a long period of time. Using genre theory as a framework, it analyzes the macrostructure and visual elements of these reports from a communicative standpoint paying equal attention to both of the genre’s subordinate communicative purposes: to give a true and fair view of the state of the company and to provide a positive image of the company. The findings indicate that the annual reports have four distinctive phases (1935 through 1958, 1959 through 1988, 1989-1990 through 2005-2006, and 2006-2007 through 2007-2008) that serve different communicative purposes. The study clearly shows that the annual report is primarily a statutory document and reveals that changes within organizations have a much greater and more immediate impact on changes in the annual reports than do other contextual factors.

Journal: Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published: 2012-01-01
DOI: 10.1177/1050651911421132
Open Access: Closed
Topics: genre theory multimodality multilingual writers

Citation Context

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Cites in this index (2)

Lord (2002)

Annual Reports: A Literature Review (1989–2001)

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David (2001)

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