Does the visualization of annual reports affect the investors’ decisions?

the corporate annual report contains different visual elements that contribute to its readability, accessibility, and comprehensibility. Companies provide different communication messages through images, tables, graphs, and encoded messages for their different targets. the information disclosed and their presentation have a relevant role to the investors decision-making process. the paper analyzes if investors’ decisions and behavior can be affected by what is displayed and communicated in the corporate annual report. the first study investigates if the visual elements elicit cognitive and affective responses in relation to the reader’s expertise, thus influencing their intention to invest. the second study aims at understanding if industry and country determinants can affect the user’s perception of the elements of the annual report and the way in which the information is disclosed. the paper concurs with the wide international accounting research that focuses on cross-national similarities and differences in which the information is disclosed and the investors’ perception of the annual report in terms of decision to invest