Corporate Communication and Integrated Reporting: The Materiality Determination Process and Stakeholder Engagement in Spain

Abstract

Academics, practitioners, and standard setters have highlighted the importance of focusing on the relevance of nonfinancial reporting disclosures, calling for a debate on how best to develop corporative communicative skills with different stakeholders to conduct proper materiality analysis. To this end, the need for an inclusive process is widely acknowledged, where engagement and close relationships between an organization and its various stakeholders are crucial to identifying the main issues that the company should consider in a materiality analysis. In this chapter, an analysis of integrated reporting (IR) will be performed as an innovative corporate communication instrument that offers a complete picture of corporate performance and the important role of the concept of materiality. Then, the concept of the materiality process will be explored in a set of Spanish early adopters of IR, which will help us understand IR technology within the organizational realm and will shed some light on the materiality determination process as a communicative tool. The study revealed five main themes connected to the materiality determination process: materiality conceptualization, sources of evidence on materiality, prioritization of stakeholder engagement, the perceived advantages of the process, and its problems. The final section will set out the future challenges of IR engagement and the research opportunities that are associated with this innovative form of communicative reporting.

Citation

Rodríguez-Gutiérrez, P. (2021), "Corporate Communication and Integrated Reporting: The Materiality Determination Process and Stakeholder Engagement in Spain", Camilleri, M.A. (Ed.) Strategic Corporate Communication in the Digital Age, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 175-195. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80071-264-520211011