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Engaged in integrated reporting? Evidence across multiple organizations

Ana Isabel Lopes (Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL), Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisboa, Portugal)
Ana Margarida Coelho (Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisboa, Portugal)

European Business Review

ISSN: 0955-534X

Article publication date: 11 June 2018

1886

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to provide evidence on geographic and firm-level characteristics within organizations using integrated reporting (<IR>) methodology to communicate their business model to stakeholders; and to shed light on the contend of integrated reports of organizations that have been recognized as leading practice by a reputable award process or through benchmarking.

Design/methodology/approach

Secondary analysis of data (descriptive and inferential statistics) is used for a sample of 224 organizations (79 classified as <IR> Reference Reporters and 145 as <IR> Regular Reporters) across 26 countries (2011 to mid-2015). Content analysis is used for <IR> Reference Reporters.

Findings

Evidence for the first objective suggests that compared with <IR> Regular Reporters, the majority of the <IR> Reference Reporters are from Europe, are larger, have a higher market value, are more profitable and are less leveraged. Evidence for the second objective reveals that the guiding principles, fundamental concepts and content elements of the most recent integrated report published by each <IR> Reference Reporter (leading practice) seem less than expected.

Research limitations/implications

<IR> Examples Database does not cover all of the organizations reporting according to the <IR> framework. Content analysis can be biased by authors’ interpretations.

Practical implications

Potential benefit both to researchers and to those involved in the reporting of financial and non-financial information using the <IR> tool.

Originality/value

The originality of the paper is as follows: it contributes to the international debate on the evolution from sustainability to <IR>, provides evidence on geographies and firm-level characteristics of organizations using <IR> to better communicate and provides the most prominent information disclosed by Reference Reporters.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate the helpful comments of two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments. They would also like to extend a special acknowledgement to Jonas Oliveira, a researcher at Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL), who provided useful insights in a previous version of the paper. This work was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, grant UID/GES/00315/2013.

Citation

Lopes, A.I. and Coelho, A.M. (2018), "Engaged in integrated reporting? Evidence across multiple organizations", European Business Review, Vol. 30 No. 4, pp. 398-426. https://doi.org/10.1108/EBR-12-2016-0161

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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