Users' information requirements and narrative reporting : the case of Iranian companies

This paper investigates whether the narrative section of Iranian companies' annual reports satisfies the information requirements of financial analysts employed by institutional investors. Taking a group of stakeholders (i.e. financial analysts) as the sample, a questionnaire survey was conducted to identify their top three information needs from the narrative sections of company annual reports in each of three information categories: Present, Analytical and Prospective. Following this survey, a checklist was prepared to analyse whether Iranian companies are disclosing this information required by financial analysts. Overall, the results partially support stakeholder theory as there is a general lack of information flow on the part of Iranian listed companies in meeting their stakeholders' information needs.

Narrative identity and offender rehabilitation

The rehabilitation of offenders is an evaluative and capability-building process and is concerned with promoting primary goods and managing risk. At the heart of this process is the construction of a more adaptive narrative identity and the acquisition of capabilities to enable offenders to secure important values in their postrelease environments. In this article, the authors examine the idea of narrative identity and its relationship to values and to assessment and treatment.

The impact of hypoglycaemia on quality of life and related patient-reported outcomes in Type 2 diabetes : a narrative review

As a common side effect of insulin treatment for diabetes, hypoglycaemia is a constant threat and can have far-reaching and potentially devastating consequences, including immediate physical injury as well as more pervasive cognitive, behavioural and emotional effects. Moreover, as a significant limiting factor in achieving optimal glycaemic control, exposure to hypoglycaemia can influence diabetes self-management.

Although hypoglycaemia is known to occur in Type 2 diabetes, its morbidity and impact on the individual are not well recognized. The aim of the current review is to examine published evidence to achieve a synthesis of the scope and significance of the potential detriment caused by hypoglycaemia to individuals with Type 2 diabetes. The implications of these observations for treatment and research have also been considered.

A narrative review was performed of empirical papers published in English since 1966, reporting the effect of hypoglycaemia on quality of life and related outcomes (including generic and diabetes specificquality of life, emotional well-being and health utilities) in Type 2 diabetes.

Research demonstrates the potential impact of hypoglycaemia on the lives of people with Type 2 diabetes, from an association with depressive symptoms and heightened anxiety, to impairment of the ability to drive, work and function in ways that are important for quality of life. Few studies consider hypoglycaemia as an explanatory variable in combination with quality of life or related primary endpoints. As a consequence, there is a pressing need for high-quality research into the overall impact of hypoglycaemia on the lives of people with Type 2 diabetes.

Inventing (a) life: deconstruction and the praxis and poiesis of narrative

Deconstruction often sits awkwardly between the realm of literary studies and criticism, and philosophy proper. This paper explores the contribution that a deconstructive literacy might have for those engaged in writing narrative, as a practice and a product. Taking up Kristeva's reading of Arendt, and the Aristotelian categories of praxis and poiesis, it will be argued that the act of narrating life amounts to both the actual generation of the life it purports to describe, while also being a praxis in itself, one that need not produce anything, since the very act of engaging in/with it, leaves atraceless trace that itself is 'full of meaning'. Narrative, however, will not rest in either pole of Aristotle's binary structure. For Arendt, Kristeva will remind us, narrative is an activity that is very 'human', where we engender not just zoe, mere physiological life, but bios, a living that is not colonised by ends alone, and instead finding in itself a value, a fulfilment in its own process. Applied to the activity of story-making (autobiographical or otherwise), and also to pedagogical practice in the academy, this dual potential of narrative (at once to produce and to be an end unto itself) reframes the Beruf (calling) of creative writing. Deconstruction, in other words, assists us in appreciating the very ethical consequences of the labour of deciding where and when the story begins and ends, and who the protagonist is. Recalling us to the ontological implications of the thought of différance, this paper will attempt to demonstrate how the action of articulating the edges of story can be read as akin to that which turns the
featureless flux of time into bios, or human life that, according to Arendt, is what goes missing under totalitarianism.