Big four accounting firms’ annual reviews: A photo analysis of gender and race portrayals

Abstract

This investigation analyses representations of gender and race in 19 Big Four UK accounting firms’ annual reviews from 2003 to 2007. Developing the critical literature considering the use of photographs in corporate annual reports and the intersection of accounting and gender and race it considers how photographs are used to depict men and women, black and white within firms’ annual reviews. Specifically, the paper analyses how people are represented in terms of job role, location, dress and their race and gender to arrive at its conclusions. As prior literature in accounting suggests, the reviews tend to under-represent women and people of colour; however, the effect is less marked than prior studies of corporate reporting. A finer grained analysis identifies the paucity of gender and race representations. Although an underlying theme of the annual reviews is to propose that the firms’ people create value for its clients and society, the job functions and locations in which people are portrayed evidences stereotyping and inequality.