The Multifaceted Nature of Banks’ Annual Reports as Informative, Promotional and Corporate Communication Practices

Companies’ annual reports have become more and more easily accessible thanks to their general availability on the Web. Burgeoning research has thus focused on these financial tools. However, due to their complexity, a comprehensive survey of AR overall functions has not been conducted yet. In this paper, the annual reports published by some European Big Banks will be presented not simply as texts used in financial investor relations or as marketing tools but rather as a genre in corporate communication, the main purposes of which are to construct a particular institutional identity and to impart a specific organizational image to relevant publics.