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This book is a timely addition to the fast-growing international debate on Integrated Reporting, which offers a holistic view of the evolution and practice of Integrated Reporting. The book covers the determinants and consequences of Integrated Reporting, as well as examining some of the most relevant issues (particularly in the context of the United States) in the debate about Integrated Reporting. The authors address key topics relating to Integrated Reporting such as: the extent to which consistency between integrated and other company reporting can be achieved, and the fundamental role of integrated thinking within a company setting. More specifically, the book provides a detailed discussion about the role of institutional investors, corporate governance systems and cultural variables in the practice of Integrated Reporting. The book contextualises Integrated Reporting as a practice within the broader realm of international accounting standards, with insight into its impact upon global markets

This book is a timely addition to the fast-growing international debate on Integrated Reporting, which offers a holistic view of the evolution and practice of Integrated Reporting. The book covers the determinants and consequences of Integrated Reporting, as well as examining some of the most relevant issues (particularly in the context of the United States) in the debate about Integrated Reporting. The authors address key topics relating to Integrated Reporting such as: the extent to which consistency between integrated and other company reporting can be achieved, and the fundamental role of integrated thinking within a company setting. More specifically, the book provides a detailed discussion about the role of institutional investors, corporate governance systems and cultural variables in the practice of Integrated Reporting. The book contextualises Integrated Reporting as a practice within the broader realm of international accounting standards, with insight into its impact upon global markets.

AbstractThe objective of this research was to investigate the terms and conditions that facilitate the quality of sustainability, environmental and social reports of listed multi‐utility companies in Italy, taking into account the emerging link between the quality of such reports and some variables (turnover, employees, complexity, etc.). Starting from the sample of companies from the multi‐utility sector (chosen because the utilities sector is subject to particular attention and pressure by customers and the community), an evaluation of already‐implemented criteria and the principles of sustainability reporting is provided, going through each report.This paper also highlights the different maturity levels of companies in the application of the principles required by the main reporting models used in the world (Global Reporting Initiative Third Generation: GRI‐G3; AA1000 SES Accountability 1000: AA1000), and investigates the reasons for the different approaches to the models' various principles/criteria. Both the level of the materiality of the reports and the inclusiveness of stakeholders are lower than other principles, even for sustainability reports from companies with a high level of compliance. As a result of this study, strategic motivation has been recognized as the discriminatory element with respect to the quality of reports, especially in companies of considerable size. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Around the world, some leading companies have started developing inte- grated reporting (IR), which expresses the interconnections between a firm's strategy, governance, performance and prospects, as well as the contexts within which it operates (Frias-Acetuino et al., 2013). The International In- tegrated Reporting Council (IIRC) released in 2013 a framework about the integration of financial and non-financial information within a unique corpo- rate report. The adoption of such an IR is mandatory just in South Africa for listed companies since 2011, while it is voluntary adopted in all the other countries around the world. According to the IR framework (2013) an IR includes eight Content Ele- ments even if companies, adopting an IR in compliance to the framework, are let free to disclose which and how much about each of them. The Content El- ements are "fundamentally linked to each other and [.] not mutually exclu- sive" (IIRC, 2013, p. 24) and refer to: 1. Organizational overview and external environment, i.e. what the organization does and what are the circumstances under which it operates; 2. Governance, i.e. how the organization's governance structure supports its ability to create value in the short, medium and long term; 3. Business model, i.e. description of the organization's business model; 4. Risks and opportunities, i.e. the specific risks and opportunities that affect the organization's ability to create value over the short, medium and long term, and how the organization deals with them; 5. Strategy and resource allocation, i.e. where the organization wants to go and how it intends to get there; 6. Per- formance, i.e. to what extent the organization has achieved its strategic objectives for the period and what are its outcomes in terms of effects on the capitals; 7. Outlook, i.e. the challenges and uncertainties the organization is likely to encounter in pursuing its strategy, and the potential implications for its business model and future performance; 8. Basis of presentation, i.e. how the organization determines what matters to include in the integrated report. Prior literature has already investigated the role of institutional factors – here intended in the forms of legal, political, and economic systems – on financial disclosure (for all La Porta et al., 1997; 1998). Most recent studies investigated institutional factors' role dealing about non-financial infor- mation (e.g. Jensen and Berg, 2012; De Villier and Marquez, 2016; Coluccia et al., 2018). However little research investigated the integration of both fi- nancial and non-financial information within IR (Frias-Acetuino et al., 2013; Zhou et al., 2017). Further these few studies analyzed integrated report be- fore the IR framework development. Thus the current study aims at extend- ing such stream of literature by investigating the influence of institutional factors on IR completeness, here defined as the level of information about the Content Elements provided by a company in its IR. The paper is structured as follow: the second paragraph describes the institutional theory and prior literature at the base of the hypotheses development, the third paragraph deals with the research design, the fourth and fifth describe the findings of the analyses and the sixth discusses them and pro- vides conclusions.

ABSTRACTThe truthful and correct representation of a company's current performance and its future prospects needs to account for a variety of sustainability issues, given that they are exerting an ever greater impact on strategic and operational decisions, risk profiles and balance sheet item valuations.Nowadays, companies operate in a context in which such issues as sustainable development, environmental policy, and stakeholder engagement are of increasing strategic importance.While such issues are also addressed in regulatory provisions, they require further study to meet the challenge of representing social and environmental factors, as, in the context of annual report disclosures, it is not possible to proceed simply by analogy.The present study compares sustainability disclosures from the annual reports of the top 50 listed firms (by number of employees) in two countries – Italy and the United Kingdom – which have different legal systems. The objective is to analyze whether different territorial contexts might affect, under different headings, the qualitative aspects of the non‐financial disclosures contained in the annual reports of the firms under examination. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

AbstractThis article focuses on the sustainability balanced scorecard (SBSC) as a performance measurement and management control tool that can play an essential role in driving companies towards sustainability goals. According to previous studies, research on the SBSC can be structured into the stages of design, implementation, use and evolution. This study aims to systematise knowledge on the use stage. Specifically, it addresses the determinants affecting SBSC use, the approaches that companies employ in SBSC application and the outcomes it generates in terms of the effects on sustainability control and management. The research was conducted through a systematic literature review considering 65 articles published in ABS‐ranked journals in the period 2000–2020. Findings add to the body of literature on the SBSC in management and accounting fields, providing an overview of current research, mapping research streams, indicating potential future research avenues and highlighting some managerial implications.

AbstractThis article investigates whether qualitative information provided by banks about risk appetite (RA) sheds substantive insight on their effective risk taking (RT) and whether this latter in turn affects RA disclosure, as well as the role played by specific types of banks' reports (i.e., integrated report, annual report, Pillar 3 report) on such relations. Using a sample of 134 reports representing 52 banks, a generalized structural equation model is applied. The article hypothesizes and empirically finds a reciprocal relation between RA disclosure and banks' RT. More specifically, in line with agency theory, the analysis displays a predominance of the inverse relation according to which banks showing higher RT provide greater disclosure. In addition, RT is found to play a mediator role between the adoption of a specific type of report—the integrated report—and RA disclosure, independently of the context in which the banks operate. Results also highlight that RT in banks adopting an integrated report is lower than the one of matched banks. Overall, this study extends risk science by complementing the literature stream on banks' accounting discretion and risk disclosure, supporting the impact of market discipline in promoting new forms of corporate reporting. Results indeed emphasize the key role of integrated reporting on RT, suggesting that integrated logic should be strengthened by policy makers to curb banks' excessive RT and leading them to provide substantive disclosure.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study whether and how owners' preferences for CEO characteristics changed due to the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. The authors identify three fundamental success factors needed for companies to compete in the after-crisis environment, and the authors connect five CEO characteristics to such factors.Design/methodology/approachThe authors rely on a hand-collected database to build a panel data of European CEOs for the 2010-2012 period.FindingsThe empirical results indicate that after 2009, CEOs of companies that were more severely hit by the crisis are significantly different compared to those of other companies. More specifically, they have a background in science or engineering; they have international experience; and they are remunerated to a higher extent through stock options. The results of this paper also indicate that only international experience had a positive and significant impact on financial performance.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the stream of literature on CEO characteristics and owners' identity, tackling the research theme from a dynamic rather than from a static perspective.

AbstractAre integrated reports actually forward looking or do they disclose mainly the past? Stakeholders, particularly investors, increasingly call for more information on strategies, risks, and opportunities that companies face. Integrated Reporting, through its future‐oriented approach, represents a response to these corporate reporting challenges, by making companies disclose more about their future outlook, enabling investors and other stakeholders to take a much longer term view. In such a context, this study explore the extent and characteristics of forward‐looking information in reports that are recognized as best practices by a reputable awards process or through benchmarking in the International Integrated Reporting Council's database and proposes different dimensions of analysis. Overall, the results show that even among the best in class integrated reports, there are differences in the disclosure of forward‐looking information and that the information needs of stakeholders regarding future‐oriented disclosure do not seem to be fully met.

AbstractBusiness scandals, environmental disasters, and the growing attention to malnutrition and starvation around the world, are emphasizing the criticism toward capitalism and the way business is approached. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability theories are becoming understated, as Porter and Kramer's emerging concept of Creating Shared Value (CSV) has argued. Indeed, CSV is attracting increasing attention from the corporate and professional world as well as getting controversial judgments and reviews by CSR and sustainability scholars. Indeed, CSV appears more a buzzword than a theoretical concept. After outlining the underlying debate, our study critically examines how worldwide organizations have approached and interpreted CSV in their sustainability disclosure practices. In that sense, similarly to Plato and Baudrillard's concept of 'simulacrum', companies adopting CSV create an interpretation of their practical reality through definitions and images. Qualitative and rather innovative techniques are applied to analyze and categorize the narrative and graphical signals provided by a sample of leading organizations within their sustainability disclosure. Our findings show that, overall, CSV is not viewed as something unrelated to CSR, not just philanthropy, but is a strategically oriented shift from sustainability which stresses the inclusion of stakeholders' needs. Given the current lack of research addressing how CSV has been interpreted and disclosed, our study provides a significant contribution to the current academic debate. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

AbstractThe recent EU Directive on nonfinancial information (NFI) disclosure allows Member States some discretion regarding its implementation. More specifically, it allows countries to decide whether: (a) information assurance is compulsory; (b) companies can waive NFI disclosure because of possible competitive harms (safe harbor); and (c) fines can be imposed on companies not disclosing NFI. We empirically test the impact of different implementation strategies on NFI quantity and quality, and we find that regulations providing incentives ('carrots') are more effective than regulations imposing costs ('sticks'). More specifically, while mandatory assurance and safe harbor have a positive impact on NFI quantity, fines do not. Our results contribute to the literature on NFI disclosure and inform regulators on the effectiveness of different implementation strategies.