Storytelling and strategy in annual reports: A study of Sears and Wal-mart annual reports

Reading annual reports and corporate documents is a complicated yet rewarding effort in that it promises a more profound grasp of institutional approach to the disclosure of its strategic direction.;Corporate authors manipulate strategic stories to reflect corporate strategy and performance in a favorable and persuasive way.;Evidence of these deliberate manipulations can be seen in the construction and reconstruction of Sears and Wal-Mart annual reports. They tell stories through letters, testimonials, graphics, cover art, and other means of storytelling. These stories undergo constant modifications to adjust retrospective narratives, living stories and prospective antenarratives in a way to signify success and improvement.;This research is a longitudinal study of storytelling practices in Sears and Wal-Mart annual reports that analyzes and compares two major corporations at two extremes of the retail industry to answer the following research question: I. What does the storytelling in Sears and Wal-Mart annual reports tell about their strategic moves and direction over time?;This study performs constant comparative analysis on two sets of annual reports. The comparison is undertaken systematically and comprehensively through latent semantic analysis, genre analysis, and storytelling analysis.;These analyses disclosed their longitudinal approach to the strategy storytelling practices. Specifically, four types of strategy storytelling of polyphonic, chronotopic, architectonic and stylistic strategy stories are studies in both sets of annual reports.;The results represent the similarities and differences of Sears and Wal-Mart regarding storytelling about their strategies and strategic alliances.;Sears have inconsistent approach to storytelling. A major example of this inconsistency is its major proliferation of stories in its 2009 annual report to justify the Kmart bankruptcy and payment for Sears Canada share just to keep its shares. Wal-Mart has not been consistent in general storytelling with radical increase of storytelling practices on 1997, 2000 and 2004 annual reports. These reports emphasize greatly of Sam Walton motivating founding stories. In 1997, Sam tells his original values and motivation to found Wal-Mart. In 2000 and 2004, these stories were reconstructed and retold to legitimize the Wal-Mart strategies.;Sears is an inconsistent and inefficient storyteller. It has only increased storytelling in 2009 to justify the Kmart bankruptcy and acquisition of Sears Canada share just to keep its shares at 73%. However, Sears is an inefficient storyteller. Sears annual reports changes in different aspects each year.;This study contributes to the management literature in that it addresses the gap in the qualitative research of organizational public documents by employing hybrid methodology and supplementing quantitative LSA analysis with qualitative storytelling analysis.;This study proposes several research agenda. Future research may investigate strategy storytelling of annual reports in other industries. This will provides the opportunity to compare multiple industries.;Moreover, the findings of study can be put to further quantitative and qualitative analyses.