Combining data and text mining techniques for analysing financial reports

There is a vast amount of financial information on companies' financial performance available to investors in electronic form today. While automatic analysis of financial figures is common, it has been difficult to extract meaning from the textual parts of financial reports automatically. The textual part of an annual report contains richer information than the financial ratios. In this paper, we combine data and text mining methods for analysing quantitative and qualitative data from financial reports, in order to see if the textual part of the report contains some indications about future financial performance. The quantitative analysis has been performed using self‐organizing maps, and the qualitative analysis using prototype‐matching text clustering. The analysis is performed on the quarterly reports of three leading companies in the telecommunications sector. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Extending Facet Design to Such Complex Psychological Structures as Piaget's Theory

This study is aimed at exploring whether Guttman's facet design could be extended into a hierarchical facet model, designed to map hypothesized relationships within such a complicated structure of a hierarchical theory as that of Piaget. The basis of the hierarchical facet model was a thorough conceptual analysis by means of facet design of 12 Piagetian experiments resulting in a differentiated classification model in the form of a mapping sentence. This mapping sentence elucidated the complex structures of the developmental sequence of Piaget's theory into a unified structure of content facets and their elements by hypothesizing two content facets, Conceptual Instrumentalities and Cognitive Strategies, underlying the content domain, i.e., the internal structure of logical operational thinking as it is represented by the logical operational structures at three developmental levels, and by deducing a set of elements of these facets. In order to outline the interrelationships between the operational structures a hierarchical facet model was elaborated representing both the step-by-step acquisition of the structures within and between the three developmental levels and which structures are necessary prerequisites for arriving at the next step in the developmental sequence. The hierarchical facet model was presented in graphical form giving an overview of the fundamental structures and their positions in the developmental sequence.     

Exercises in arbitrariness and ambiguity — A study of twelve cost benefit analyses of industrial disinvestment decisions

The choice whether to continue or discontinue business operations always includes a strong element of valuation and hence a certain amount of arbitrariness. In order to limit this arbitrariness there are laws and a very firm old tradition regulating common business accounting.If an annual report shows repeated losses over a number of years and thus indicates that operations should be discontinued totally or partially, a so-called cost benefit analyst may appear claiming to produce a better basis for decision “from society's point of view” than the one which is given by ordinary business accounting practices. In this article that claim is questioned by an examination of twelve Swedish cases. It has been found ungrounded. Cost benefit analysis does not seem preferable as a basis for decision making where ordinary business accounts are available.