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The sport industry, due to the great importance of intangible assets, represents a field of particular interest for the analysis of intellectual capital disclosure (ICD). However, this sector is still underexplored in the academic literature. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing the level of intellectual capital (IC) information disclosed by the most important basketball clubs on their website and the factors capable of influencing the dissemination of such information. Specifically, it examines the impact of social media visibility – in terms of number of social networks, number of posts, number of followers and internet visibility – on the ICD level.

Firstly, this study performs a manual content analysis of the websites of the top 80 European and US basketball clubs aimed at analysing the ICD level. Secondly, it provides for a regression analysis to test the impact of social media visibility on the amount of IC information disclosed.

Empirical results show a low level of ICD among the basketball clubs examined. They also demonstrate the positive impact of number of posts, number of followers and internet visibility on the amount of IC information disclosed online.

This study extends the analysis of the ICD to the sport industry, still little examined by the academic literature. In this regards, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the ICD in the basketball industry.

Human capital (HC) represents a particularly important element capable of guiding the firms’ value creation process in the new economy. The purpose of this study is to analyze the level of HC information contained within integrated reports and to identify the variables that influence the HC disclosure policies of companies.

Research hypotheses, developed on the basis of agency theory, were tested using a regression model on a sample of 137 worldwide companies. A HC disclosure index was designed to examine the level of HC disclosure and a content analysis was used to investigate the integrated reports.

Results showed a positive and significant impact of firm size, board size, board independence and board diversity on the level of HC information disclosed by companies within their integrated reports. On the contrary, they demonstrated a not significant effect of firm profitability.

Results have important implications for corporate executives, high-level corporate governance, policymakers and investors. They point out additional further motivations for creating larger boards and including non-executive members and women on the board. In addition, investors could use the HC disclosure index to evaluate companies’ HC disclosure policies in their investment decisions.

This study extends the agency theory application scope and extends the analysis of HC disclosure to other corporate documents, namely, integrated reports. Besides, it increases knowledge about the factors capable of influencing HC disclosure, identifying a series of elements capable of directly affecting the level of information that companies disclose.

This study, based on stakeholder theory, aims to analyse the factors that can affect the level of visual disclosure in the context of integrated reporting (IR), which represents the last frontier of corporate disclosure.

This study develops an innovative measure to measure the level of visual disclosure of integrated reports that takes into account the use and degree of integration of images and graphs. Furthermore, to test the hypotheses, this study uses a regression model on a sample of 134 international companies that published an integrated report in 2018.

The results show that firm size, firm profitability and industry environmental sensitivity positively affect the level of visual disclosure of the integrated reports.

To our knowledge, this is the first study that examines visual disclosure in the IR context. It also extends the field of application of the stakeholder theory, still little used to explain visual disclosure strategies, and increases knowledge on the determinants of IR.

This study aims to examine the impact of corporate governance attributes, in the form of board characteristics, on risk disclosures provided through integrated reporting (IR).

Drawing upon an agency theory perspective, this study examines the effect of the main corporate governance board characteristics (size, gender diversity, independence and meeting frequency) on the level of risk disclosure provided by a sample of 95 IR adopters from 24 countries for 2018.

The results suggest that firms are slow to realise IR’s potential to produce innovations in risk disclosure mechanisms. In addition, certain board characteristics, such as gender diversity, independence of directors and meeting frequency, are positive drivers of the risk disclosure provided via IR.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on risk disclosure provided via IR. Connecting corporate governance mechanisms to IR risk disclosure practices can contribute to enhancing the practical and theoretical understanding of the role that the board of directors may play in stimulating transparency and accountability about risks via an alternative communication tool, IR, to the benefit of both investors and other stakeholders.

This study aims to investigate the financial and country-level determinants of integrated reporting quality in the financial industry. Specifically, this study analyses the impact of profitability, size, leverage and civil law system on the integrated reporting quality.

Hypotheses were tested using a regression model on a sample of 87 financial institutions. An integrated reporting (IR)-quality scoreboard was used to measure report quality.

The results show that IR quality is significantly and positively influenced by profitability, size, financial leverage and the civil law system.

The results have particularly important implications for large, profitable financial institutions that make greater use of financial leverage and that are localized in non-civil law countries. Managers should increase transparency by expanding the content and quality of the information contained in the integrated reports.

This study contributes to the literature by revealing several financial factors that influence IR quality. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate IR quality in the context of the financial industry.

This study aims to add empirical evidence to the intellectual capital (IC) literature by enhancing understanding of voluntary online IC disclosure (ICD) practices in knowledge-based institutions such as universities from an international standpoint. The ultimate purpose of this study is to examine how different variables related to size, internet visibility and certain corporate governance attributes (i.e. board size and board gender diversity) affect the extent to which universities from different world’s countries convey ICD through websites.

This study investigates a sample of 100 international universities selected according to the QS World University Rankings 2020 to examine the level of ICD provided through their official websites. It uses a content analysis to measure the actual amount of IC information disclosed by these universities and a regression model to test the impact of the explanatory variables.

Empirical results demonstrate a negative impact of the board size and a positive effect of board gender diversity and internet visibility on the level of IC information disclosed by international universities on their website. They also demonstrate a non-significant effect of university size.

This study contributes to enriching the academic literature in different ways. In the first place, it extends the field of application of the stakeholder theory. In the second place, this study sheds light on the actual ICD level of international universities. In the third place, it examines the ICD through a channel – websites – which are still little explored by the academic literature. Finally, this study increases knowledge about the factors that can influence the ICD disclosure of international universities.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how Information technology (IT) controls influence the control environment’s components and the internal control system.

This paper aims to highlight how IT controls enable to improve the control environment assessment and implementation.

The analysis indicates that the implementation of the IT controls (IT organizational controls, IT process controls and IT soft variables controls) provides some indications for managers and auditors, who must implement or assess internal control system. A joint use of the three dimensions of IT control contributes to a better assessment of the individual components of the control environment. IT controls help managers to develop the design of the organizational structure and to identify the key processes to achieve the internal control objectives and to mitigate firm’s risk.

The examination of three IT control dimensions allows managers to expand their knowledge about these types of controls and change the way they approach technology-based processes and associated risks. This improves the understanding of the key aspects connected to the control environment. The paper provides a list of the relevant activities that affect the three types of IT controls. This is useful for managers to begin to frame the specific controls inside the three dimensions of IT control.

This paper addresses an area of relevance to both practitioners and academics. This analysis focuses on accounting information systems themes and, through the examination of the IT controls, allows a better understanding of the hard and soft elements of the control environment.

This paper aims to fill the existing gaps in literature which deal with both the application of a socially oriented philosophy to the theme of strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) integration and to the systematic analysis of the processes of strategic CSR management, and to create a connection between social management philosophy and the dynamic approach to CSR integration based on the strategic management processes. In particular, this study aims at creating a conceptual model to highlight, in a structured and organic way, the dynamic relationships, based on a social management philosophy, characterizing the integration of CSR in the different strategic management processes: formulation and implementation of both intended and emergent strategies. In relation to these goals, the following research questions are formulated: What are the most important strategic management processes in which to integrate CSR following a social management philosophy? How does integration (strategic CSR) based on social management philosophy impact these processes? How do strategic CSR processes based on social management philosophy determine strategic change? Which are the management tools which support integration based on social management philosophy?

The work is a conceptual paper. The paper has been developed as follows: the identification of the theoretical gaps; the definition of the research objectives; the literature review about both CSR integration and strategic management in a dynamic perspective; the formulation of the research questions; the conceptual analysis, based on social management philosophy, of the relevant propositions related to the dynamic approach to CSR integration; the building of the conceptual model based on the propositions; and the description and the analysis of the model.

In this model, three circles of change that are able to describe the integration of CSR into strategic management have been identified: A, the circle for achieving the strategic intent; B, the circle for formulating the strategic intent; and C, the circle of bottom-up innovations.

From a managerial perspective, it is possible to point out the following implications related to the integration of CSR into strategic management and the achievement of a strategic CSR: as for change dynamics which are linked to the formulations of the intended strategy, it is fundamental to develop a social management philosophy; to achieve the strategic intent, it is necessary to incorporate CSR actions into core activity of value chain; to favour the socially oriented bottom-up innovations, it is necessary to define a favourable organizational context; the strategic CSR must be supported by integrated tools and methodologies that make the rationalization of processes of change possible; and the application of tools and processes, even sophisticated ones, which are not based on social management philosophy may lead, in the long run, to negative tensions among stakeholders, as well as to serious repercussions on the firm’s management and its performance.

It is possible to pinpoint other implications for the society: the circle for achieving the strategic intents, with the aim of improving the execution phase, increases the positive externalities and reduces the negative externalities of the economic activities; the circle for formulating strategic intents allows to identify a win–win solution for CSR issues; and the bottom-up entrepreneurship increases the chances to find innovative solutions which combine social aspects and competitive aspects.

The analyses provide an integrated approach, connecting strategic management and CSR in a dynamic perspective.

The latest developments in the football industry, the commodification of sport, the excessive focus on profitability and the limited attention to social and environmental aspects have caused a legitimation crisis for football clubs. According to the legitimacy theory, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure represents a tool capable of allowing the construction or repair of legitimacy. This study, in line with this theory, aims to analyse the amount of CSR disclosure provided by football clubs and the determinants, related to visibility, of the level of information provided.

This study uses a manual content analysis on the corporate websites of the 80 football clubs that qualified for the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League group stages for the 2019–2020 year to measure the level of CSR disclosure and subsequently a regression analysis to examine the impact of visibility on the amount of information provided.

Results reveal that football clubs still disclose relatively little information about sustainability issues, and that sports performance visibility, human capital visibility and social media visibility positively affect the amount of information that football clubs disclose.

This study extends the horizons of CSR disclosure to the football industry which is still little explored in the academic literature. Furthermore, it extends the scope of legitimacy theory, showing how CSR disclosure can be a means for football clubs to obtain or repair legitimacy. Furthermore, this study extends the list of determinants of the level of CSR disclosure, showing that visibility can influence the amount of CSR information.

In recent years, policymakers have increasingly pushed firms to disclose non-financial information. In Europe, integrated reporting (IR) is an increasingly adopted tool to fully comply with the requirements of the Directive 2014/95/EU. This study aims to examine the financial benefits of IR quality and specifically the effect on the cost of debt.

A manual content analysis is performed to measure the quality of the information contained in integrated reports. A panel regression model is used to test the effect of the IR quality on the cost of debt on a sample of 399 observations (a balanced panel of 133 European listed firms for the period 2017–2019).

Results demonstrate a negative relationship between IR quality and the cost of debt, showing that firms that provide higher quality integrated reports benefit from access to third party financial resources at better conditions.

The results of this study offer important implications for managers and policymakers. The capacity of IR quality to allow a cost of debt reduction should push managers to a greater propensity towards transparency and the dissemination of high quality integrated reports. In addition, in light of the benefits connected to the IR quality, policymakers should push towards the adoption of IR as a solution to fulfil the regulatory obligations deriving from Directive 2014/95/EU.

Results show the goodness of IR as an ideal solution to fulfil the obligations imposed by Directive 2014/95/EU. The important financial benefits associated with IR quality make the high quality integrated report an ideal tool capable of fulfilling regulatory obligations and at the same time guaranteeing a reduction in the cost of debt.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first work that analyses the relationship between IR quality and cost of debt.