In a commentary, SMU Visiting Professor of Accounting (Practice) Clarence Goh, Associate Professor of Accounting (Education) and Associate Dean (Teaching and Curriculum) Seow Poh Sun and Associate Professor of Accounting (Education) and Associate Dean (Undergraduate Admissions) Gary Pan urged corporate firms to make financial disclosures more readable.
One suggestion is for companies to incorporate the use of plain English when drafting such documents so that the reader can easily understand. They noted that there are many benefits to having disclosures written in plain English. Investors would be more likely to understand the disclosures and to make informed judgments. Investment analysts would also be able to make more timely and accurate recommendations to their clients if they can understand such disclosures more quickly and easily. In communicating with their investors in plain English, companies would also surely be more likely to successfully communicate their messages to investors and to build up stronger relationships with them.