The Intangible Global Report: an integrated corporate communication framework

Abstract

Purpose

Intangibles are the main value drivers of a firm. This consideration implies that it becomes more and more important/urgent to measure and report intellectual capital. The new reporting statement (intellectual capital report) is not yet commonly used by firms, but many, on a voluntary basis, already publish environmental, social and sustainability reports, which contain much information on intangibles. Starting from this point, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that it is possible to integrate the information contained in both reports in a single ad hoc integrated document, having both external and internal communication aims.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper addresses three research questions: whether the theoretical premises exist for the integration of the two different frameworks; which frameworks should be chosen as a starting point; and which features should have an integrated framework. Theoretical premises for integration have been found in the research‐based view (RBV) theory. To chose the social report and intellectual capital report (ICR) framework to use as starting points, the authors analyze the frameworks from the intellectual capital (IC) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature; then choose the frameworks (GRI3 and Meritum reports) founded on an evolved notion of, respectively, corporate responsibility and IC, which share the same features – the orientation towards stakeholders, the managerial approach, and the focus on intangible activities that a new integrated framework should respect.

Findings

Starting from the selected CSR and ICR frameworks, the authors planned and designed a new, ad hoc model of corporate communication, able to integrate the social and intangible dimensions in a single document, named the Intangible Global Report (IGR). The IGR framework is composed of five dimensions, three derived from the ICR (human capital, structural capital, relational capital) and two from the GRI report (environmental, social). The different aspects of each dimension are surveyed in terms of intangible resources, activities and impacts, measured by financial and non‐financial indicators.

Originality/value

The main originality of the paper consists in providing a general framework for firms to integrate all their intangible information in a single document – the IGR framework – focused on the firm's strategy, which allows the stakeholder to visualize all the firm's intangibles, how a company conducts its activities and the impacts that such activities have on the environmental, social and IC dimensions.

Citation

Veltri, S. and Nardo, M.T. (2013), "The Intangible Global Report: an integrated corporate communication framework", Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 26-51. https://doi.org/10.1108/13563281311294119