How do individuals read and interpret information contained in financial statements?

Individuals in a wide range of industries and occupations are provided with financial statements (and other financial information) and use them to make decisions. How do individuals (particularly those without financial and/or accounting expertise) read financial statements? What meanings do they take from and how do they interpret the information? How do they use this information to make decisions? Do individuals in leadership positions read and interpret this information themselves, or do they rely on others within their organization with relevant financial expertise to do so? More generally, can the creation, use, interpretation, and/or analysis of financial information contained in financial statements and annual reports be situated in the domain of statistics (including statistical interpretation and analysis) and if so, what are the associated benefits and challenges? Reading and Interpreting Financial Information will help answer these questions. In particular, we are interested in individuals’ reading patterns, the inferences they draw from financial information, and other behavioural responses.