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The purpose of this paper is to explore the gendered nature of interactions in mixed sex Canadian corporate annual report (CAR) photographs.

Quantitative content analysis of 106 CAR photographs is performed to evaluate, at the level of the photograph, how women and men interact in mixed sex photographs to reveal their relative prominence, power and status.

Women in CAR photographs overall are under‐represented. In mixed sex photographs, however, the relative proportions of women and men approximate those of women in the Canadian workforce, but men are more prominent in most photographs. Mixed sex photographs are relatively similar in composition (depicting largely passive, smiling subjects, few of whom are talking or in positions of authority). Where there are differences in mixed sex photographs, however, women are portrayed as less powerful than the men in the photographs. Supplemental testing suggests that the findings are persisting over time.

This paper looks at gendered interactions in CAR photos in a Canadian context. It takes the photograph, rather than individual subjects in the photo, as the level of analysis. This research clearly situates the inclusion of photographs in CARs in the voluntary disclosure literature and explores the implications for management and readers of CARs.

This paper seeks to analyze the use of metaphor in the 1997‐2006 letters to shareholders (LTS) of Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel). It aims to assess the prevalence of metaphor and changes in the use of metaphor as turnover in corporate leadership took place and as Nortel's financial fortunes changed.

Metaphors in the LTS are part of a corporation's voluntary disclosures, which in turn may be used for impression management purposes. The paper uses discourse analysis, in particular quantitative and qualitative content analysis, of the LTS to identify key metaphors and to evaluate changes in the prevalence of these metaphors across corporate leaders and during phases of growth and decline.

Several key metaphors are identified in Nortel's letters to shareholders, including science, journey, vision, construction and theatre. Evidence is also found that demonstrates changes in the prevalence of metaphors across various chief executive officers, and changes in the meaning of metaphors in periods of growth and decline.

The contribution of the paper is to highlight the use of metaphor in the voluntary disclosures (i.e. letters to shareholders) of a major North American corporation during a turbulent decade. The preferences of four very different CEOs are reflected in their choice of metaphor, supporting arguments that metaphor is used in voluntary disclosures as a means of impression management, particularly in relation to trends in corporate financial performance.

Using the theory of sensibility and McClelland et al.’s (2013) metaphorical analysis, this study aims to analyse the accounting metaphors and meta-metaphor of The Hollow Men, a poem written by T. S. Eliot.

The analysis uses McClelland et al.’s (2013) five-step procedure to ascertain the poem’s metaphor use.

The Hollow Men depicts accountants as ritualistic and accounting voices as quiet and meaningless while its meta-metaphor conveys accounting as rites and shadows.

Although The Hollow Men’s use of Form 4 metaphors, where neither figurative nor literal source term is named, places an onus on the reader to infer meaning from accounting metaphor use, the analysis provides readers with a valuable structure for evincing accounting metaphors that present pervasive accounting issues facing the modern world.

Accountants, according to The Hollow Men, are hollow, devotees to plunderers and property and rain dancers. The Hollow Men situates the quest for accounting as a ritual for order and the preservation of the status quo.

The Hollow Men’s mages of accounting immersion in rites and shadows accord with the conceptual metaphors of accounting as magic and accounting as history.

The originality of this study rests in its introduction to McClelland et al.’s (2013) metaphorical analysis of accounting research.