https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/22034 Fri, 01 May 2026 19:41:07 GMT 2026-05-01T19:41:07Z https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/32045 Making sense of letters to shareholders during the Covid-19 crisis: The effect of readability, tones and sentiment Esterhuyse, Leana; du Toit, Elda Letters to shareholders are crucial in corporate communication, influencing stakeholder perceptions. This study investigates how crisis events affected the readability, tones and sentiment of these letters from the JSE Top 40 South African listed companies during the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasising the importance of ethical and transparent communication as a hallmark of good business. Letters to shareholders for 2018 to 2021 were analysed. Findings suggest that letters to shareholders during the crisis showed increased use of negative, uncertain, constraining, and weak modal words and fewer positive and strong modal words. Readability remained consistently low throughout all years. Sentiment became markedly less positive in 2020 but picked up again. Our study contributes to the literature on narrative styles affecting readability, tones and sentiment, especially during a crisis. Shareholders could benefit from considering tone and sentiment in their investment decisions. Regulators could consider enhanced guidance for corporate disclosures to protect report users. Sun, 01 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/32045 2024-09-01T00:00:00Z https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/31994 Reporting on human rights by large corporates: Interplay between comprehensiveness and narrative manipulation Esterhuyse, Leane; du Toit, Elda Companies are often accused of using sustainability disclosures as public relations tools to manage financial and non-financial stakeholders' impressions. The purpose of our study was firstly to determine how comprehensive the human rights disclosures of a sample of large international companies were and secondly, whether different narrative styles are associated with levels of disclosure to manage readers' impressions about the company. We analysed the public human rights disclosures for 154 large, international companies obtained from the UN Guiding Principles Reporting website. On average, companies complied with only one-third of the UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework criteria. Communication about policies has the highest compliance, whilst communication about determining which human rights aspects are salient to the company, remedies for transgressions and stakeholder engagement have the lowest disclosure. When we split the sample between high disclosure and low disclosure companies, we found that the readability of the human rights disclosures is exceptionally low and even more so for low disclosure companies. Low disclosure companies used words implying Satisfaction significantly more than high disclosure companies, which provides some support for suspecting that low disclosure companies practise impression management by only presenting a ‘rosy picture’, as well as obfuscation via low readability. We add to the literature on impression management by large corporations in their sustainability reporting, and specifically human rights disclosures, by revealing how the interplay of low disclosure, low readability and overuse of words signalling Satisfaction contributes to impression management, rather than sincere attempts at accountability to all stakeholders. Wed, 13 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/31994 2023-09-13T00:00:00Z https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/31993 Playing to which audience? Textual analysis of standalone sustainability reports in the South African mining sector du Toit, Elda; Esterhuyse, Leana We explore narrative styles of 50 standalone sustainability reports for the years 2016 to 2019 published by South African mining companies. Our analyses using computer-aided narrative analysis tools reveal that readability is very low, and optimism and commonality are the most prevalent narrative tones. We also investigate whether the intended audience is associated with differences in the readability and narrative tone by comparing reports of companies included (excluded) in the FTSE/JSE Responsible Investment (RI) index. We find that the more sophisticated audience of reports by companies included in the RI index is associated with even lower readability. These reports are also less optimistically phrased than those of companies not included in the RI index. We contribute to the theory by demonstrating that RI investors and ESG rating agencies may temper companies’ tendencies to manage impressions in sustainability reports. We also contribute by placing the study in South Africa, an emerging economy. Tue, 01 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/31993 2023-08-01T00:00:00Z https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/28518 Seeing the Wood for the Trees - Textual Analysis of the Integrated Reports of Forestry, Logging and Related Services Companies in South Africa du Toit, Elda; Esterhuyse, Leana Low readability and narrative tones can be used as impression management tools in corporate communications, especially in environmentally sensitive industries. We conducted computerised textual analysis on the integrated reports of all four companies listed in the Forestry, Logging, and Related Services (FLRS) industry of the JSE for the period 2014 to 2020. Results are compared with similar analyses of integrated reports from four well-known Retail companies. We find that FLRS integrated reports are significantly longer and more difficult to read than those from the Retail industry. For analysis of narrative tone, results showed that both industries favoured Commonality as the most favoured tone. However, the Activity and Optimism narrative tones reveal significantly different usage between the two industries. Activity scores are consistently higher for the FLRS industry while Optimism is higher for the Retail industry. We contribute to the field of impression management with results from the South African context. We confirm lower readability of integrated reports from companies operating in environmentally sensitive industries, as well as differences in narrative strategies between two industries, the FLRS and the Retail industry. Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://ir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/28518 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z