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To determine whether to entrust the European Union (EU) to create a new nonfinancial reporting framework or endorse the extant reporting framework developed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), this study aims to explore whether the mandatory implementation of the EU Directive positively impacted the GRI-based environmental disclosure.

The authors compared the pre- and post-EU Directive environmental disclosure of 16 Italian environmentally sensitive companies. The authors used an extended coding scheme and developed a unique scoring system to compare the quantitative and qualitative changes in environmental disclosure.

The analysis showed that the quantity of environmental disclosure increased after the mandatory EU Directive adoption. The most significant change was observed regarding the disclosure topics explicitly required by the Italian legislature. Additionally, disclosure of soft information continued to prevail over that of hard information in the post-Directive period. While the Directive boosted the level of adherence to GRI standards, Italian companies disclosed information that could be easily mimicked (soft) instead of objective measures that could be verified (hard). In light of this evidence, the endorsement of extant GRI standards could be a valuable option for enhancing the comparability and transparency of environmental disclosure.

This study used an original extended coding system and proposed related environmental disclosure indexes that allow monitoring changes in environmental disclosure over time. To the authors’ best knowledge, this study is one of the few that justifies the significant impact of regulation (here the EU Directive) on the increase in environmental disclosure and that uses hard and soft information typology to examine the quality of environmental disclosure.

Unlike quantitative studies, interview data generally cannot be validated; yet, they are typically the only evidence of the research. This study develops protocols for using verbatim interview quotations in research and for assessing the quality of interview quotations.

This research reviews 20 empirical papers using in-depth interviews containing 600 interview quotations to examine authors' approaches to verbatim interviewee quotations. The research analyses the sample papers for interview transcript handling, selection of quotations, the number and length of interview quotations, how they are placed and presented, the proportion of interviewee voices reproduced in quotations and the disclosure of protocols for translating and editing quotations. This paper includes illustrative interview quotations as exemplars of best practice.

Given the modest discussion of the principles influencing the reproduction of quotations in research, this study develops a framework for evaluating prior research. Researchers use a wide variety of practices to reproduce interview quotations in accounting research. The issues derived from this review, and their application to interview-based papers, frame an argument for a general set of quality criteria and protocols rather than rigid rules for assessing qualitative work. These criteria can serve as anchor points for qualitative evaluation.

There is little guidance on the use of interview quotations in qualitative research which this study bridges.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the practice of integrated reporting (IR) assurance from the auditors’ point of view, including the main challenges to be addressed and insights on evolution and potential new assurance approaches.

Based on an exploratory research design, the paper conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 expert auditors, accounting assurance providers and non-accounting assurance providers, in the Italian context, combining an open coding approach with an axial coding approach, and using a three-stage process to organize data.

Respondents confirmed that current IR practices do not represent a real paradigm shift and that the need for in-depth changes in the assurance approach will depend on how these practices evolve. The main challenges highlighted are the absence of suitable criteria, the difficulty of assuring narratives and future-oriented information, and the low level of maturity of internal systems and processes of companies and stakeholders. Proposals for overcoming these challenges are framed mainly within current assurance models, although some respondents pointed out the need for a shift towards new assurance approaches.

The paper relies on a small sample of well-informed subjects active in Italy; thus, the results may not represent the views of all auditors.

The findings identify areas that practitioners and assurance provider firms should focus on, looking to IR assurance and its growing importance and application as a future business area. They may be useful to standard setters and regulators to better understand limits and opportunities of requiring IR assurance on specific information not strictly related to financial information, and for the development of guidance or standards for IR assurance.

This research contributes to the currently underexplored area of IR assurance. Relatively few studies have investigated this topic from an empirical point of view, and no study involving auditors has been carried out in the Italian context.