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This study aims to examine the impact of extensible business reporting language (XBRL) technology and its functionality on various aspects of financial reporting and its overall quality.

To conduct this study, data was collected from a variety of professionals, including accountants, auditors, tax advisors and others. A structured research instrument was developed, and the collected data were analysed using structural equation modelling and mediation analysis techniques.

The study’s results showed that XBRL technology and its functionality have a noteworthy impact on different aspects of financial reporting. Moreover, the various aspects of financial reporting positively affect the overall quality of financial reporting.

This study solely relied on the opinions of various professionals regarding the current issue under investigation and did not empirically assess the reporting practices of companies by examining their XBRL-based reports. Additionally, it concentrated solely on financial reporting aspects and did not account for non-financial aspects. The main theoretical contributions of this paper to technology in financial reporting, XBRL and accounting literature are that it sheds light on the influence of the use of technologies in the business reporting process and their influence on various aspects of business reporting, which has only received confined focus from earlier studies so far.

This study’s findings could provide valuable insights to the managerial teams of organizations seeking to digitize their business reporting practices, specifically in areas such as regulatory compliance, integrated reporting and timely dissemination of reports in a sustainable way. Furthermore, it could help these teams reap the benefits of technology for various regulatory compliance matters.

This study could assist business organizations and regulatory authorities in adopting and implementing technology such as XBRL for accounting and business reporting. Furthermore, the study’s findings can aid in enhancing financial reporting practices by considering emerging aspects such as ESG and sustainability aspects.

To achieve sustainable development objectives, managers are encouraged to implement best practices in corporate social and environmental responsibility within their establishments. The main objective of this chapter is to assess the quality of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) communication for Moroccan financial institutions. This chapter is devoted to the content analysis of the annual reports of 14 financial institutions listed in Morocco regarding ESG strategies between 2017 and 2021. The reference assessment tool we used is the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards (2016), based on six principles. Each principle contains requirements and guidance on how to apply it. These principles are summarized in the following: Accuracy, Balance, Clarity, Comparability, Reliability, and Timeliness. The sample is composed of 14 financial institutions listed on the Casablanca Stock Exchange. After checking the content of the annual reports of listed Moroccan financial institutions, we detected several shortcomings in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting behavior. Companies avoid disclosing information about negative events and performance. We saw this as a bad sign for stakeholders. The results showed a significant gap between the GRI standards and the content of the annual reports. These weaknesses mainly concern accuracy, comparability, and, timeliness, hence the need to carry out corrective measures to improve the quality of ESG practices within Moroccan financial institutions. One of the limitations of this research is its focus on financial institutions. However, it is possible to broaden the scope of the research by assessing the quality of ESG communication for nonfinancial companies.

The present study aims to investigate the effect of environmental reporting on the financial performance of banks in India.

The study is based on the secondary data. The sample includes the banks listed in the NSE Nifty Bank Index from 2016–2017 to 2020–2021. The environmental reporting data was obtained through the content analysis technique. The financial data was collected from the CMIE Prowess database. Panel regression analysis was used to analyse the data.

The findings indicate a negative significant influence of environmental reporting on the ROA and ROE of banks. On the other hand, environmental reporting does not significantly influence the EPS of banking institutions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to contribute to the scarce literature on the influence of environmental reporting on financial performance, pertinently in the context of a developing nation's banking sector.

This paper aims to investigate whether managers use impression management through the presentation of non-financial information in an integrated reporting setting.

The authors performed an experiment with experienced professional controllers and part-time students enrolled in the executive master’s degree in finance and control at universities in the Netherlands. In this experiment, we manipulated the financial performance to test if managers present non-financial information differently based on the firm’s financial performance.

This study found that impression management is not applied by including or excluding non-financial key performance indicators (KPIs) in the integrated report, but by using more prominent presentation forms for positive non-financial performance and non-prominent ones for negative non-financial performance. However, the use of impression management through the presentation form decreased when the firms’ financial performance was positive. In that instance, this study noted that managers statistically significantly more often decided to present poor non-financial performance in a prominent presentation format in comparison to managers who were not aware of the financial performance.

A limitation of this paper is that the authors focused on only two impression management strategies: opportunistic/under-reporting and the presentation form. This analysis shows that the use of impression management mainly seems to occur through the presentation format. Future research could investigate other impression management strategies in an integrated reporting setting.

The results of this study are of importance for users of integrated reports, because it will provide more insight into whether firms are truly transparent in their integrated reports. Furthermore, the theoretical implication of this study is relevant to regulatory authorities, because it sheds light on the different forms of impression management used in integrated reporting and the influence of positively or negatively performing KPIs on the decisions of preparers of integrated reports.

Therefore, in this study, the authors add to prior literature by investigating the concept of impression management in an integrated reporting setting. More specifically, the authors perform an experiment and focus on different forms of impression management (the presentation format and under-reporting) through non-financial KPIs in an integrated reporting setting and link it to firm financial performance.

With the accelerated global adoption of integrated reporting, this paper aims to understand the role of practicing accountants in integrated reporting.

Using the case study approach, data was collected from semi-structured interviews in six international organisations that have adopted integrated reporting. Institutional work provided the theoretical insights for this study.

The study found that accountants were an indispensable part of the integrated reporting process because of their strength and knowledge in corporate reporting. However, despite having the potential to engage, it was noted that accountants currently do not apply their key reporting skills in the integrated reporting context. It was observed that accountants’ roles were limited to carrying out their traditional routine financial reporting activities including reporting on the financial aspects of the report, developing key performance indicators and assisting with assurance related tasks.

This study adds to the limited literature by providing a comprehensive understanding of how accountants are currently involved in integrated reporting. This study suggests that accountants are seeking to maintain their existing institutional practices.

A need for accountants to move beyond maintaining their institutional roles and engage more extensively in integrated reporting is emphasised.

Through its focus on human agency, this study applied institutional work to integrated reporting, thereby expanding literature on integrated reporting and the roles performed by accountants in this process. This study also contributes to the conceptualisation of maintaining institutions strategies through the development of the cooperative strategy.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the moderating role of honesty-humility of financial managers on aggressive financial reporting behavior.

To test the research hypotheses, a scenario-based questionnaire taken from Brink et al. (2018) was used. Using a cross-sectional survey design, the authors collected primary data of 160 financial managers of firms in Iran using structured questionnaires. The research sample selected was based on Cohen et al.’s (2000) table. To test the research hypotheses, analysis of variance was used.

The results showed that increasing honesty-humility of financial managers decreases the impact of social pressure and risk appetite interaction on aggressive financial reporting. In addition, the results of further analysis showed that reducing the honesty-humility of financial managers increases the impact of risk appetite on aggressive financial reporting. Moreover, the results indicate that reducing the honesty-humility of financial managers increases the impact of social pressure on aggressive financial reporting.

This finding provides significant evidence for auditor, managers and policymakers in Iran. Policymakers, auditor and company managers can emphasize compliance with the code of ethics, internal control and corporate governance to increase ethics and reduce negative economic consequences.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first case in an emerging economy to survey the moderating role of honesty-humility of financial managers on aggressive financial reporting behavior. Also, this study contributes to understanding how factors at the individual, social and organizational level combine to influence financial managers’ aggressive financial reporting behavior.

This paper aims to review 68 archival studies on the impact of audit committees (ACs) on firms’ consequences [(non)financial reporting, performance and audit quality] in European firms.

Applying a stakeholder agency-theoretical framework, the author differentiates between three categories of AC variables: presence; composition; and resources, incentives and diligence.

The author finds that AC composition, (non)financial reporting and audit quality are dominant in the literature review. Other inputs or outputs are either too low in amount or yielded heterogeneous results, hindering clear tendencies. However, there are indications that financial expertise is positively related to financial reporting and audit quality, in line with agency theory and European regulatory assumptions.

In the discussion of potential future research, the author emphasizes, among others, the need for the recognition of innovative and sustainable AC variables, inclusion of moderator and especially mediator variables and reaction to endogeneity concerns by advanced regression models.

As the European Commission currently discusses extended regulations on AC duties and composition, this literature review highlights the huge impact of financial expertise on financial reporting and audit quality. In view of the increased monitoring duties of sustainability reporting, both business practices and regulatory bodies should increase the sustainability expertise of ACs.

This analysis makes useful contributions to prior research by focusing on attributes of AC and their impact on firms’ outputs in the European capital market, based on a differentiation between mandatory one-tier/two-tier systems and the choice model. The findings support the promotion of European evidence-based regulations, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and measures of financial reporting quality.

The authors explore the link between CSR and several indicators of firms’ financial reporting quality. Estimation with firm and year fixed effects is based on a sample of US publicly traded firms covering the period from 1991 to 2018.

Empirical results demonstrate that firms with higher CSR scores are associated with higher accuracy of financial forecasts, fewer earnings surprises and greater coverage by financial analysts. This positive relationship is more profound for firms that face low agency concerns, firms that have a higher level of customer awareness, firms that have more long-term institutional ownership or firms that do not face financial constraints.

The study contributes to the ongoing debate on the value of CSR. The results support the stakeholder value maximization view of CSR and identify the impact of several factors on its relationship with the quality of financial reporting.

New Zealand (NZ) has no reporting standard or guidance for management commentary (MC) that accompanies financial reports. This is unusual, considering MC is provided by many entities and valued by users. Further, the guidance on MC provided by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in their Management Commentary Practice Statement 1 (MCPS1), which was issued in 2010, is currently under review. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the views of NZ’s financial reporting stakeholders, particularly users, preparers and auditors of financial reports for insights regarding the usefulness of MC.

To gain insights into the views of NZ’s financial reporting stakeholders on MC, this paper surveyed users, preparers and auditors of financial statements. This paper includes an analysis of their views on the objectives, content and principles that should underlie MC in financial reporting, based on the IASB’s MCPS1 with consideration of recent work by the IASB on the revision of MCPS1. In addition, the analysis provides insights as to whether the reporting of MC should be made mandatory, and whether assuring MC would increase its usefulness.

This study found that auditors generally view MC as less useful and more in need of assurance than do preparers and users. Respondents’ ratings indicate that the most important objective for MC is “to enable the assessment of the quality of management’s stewardship”. “Assessing the entity’s future prospects”, and “assessing future cash flows” are also highly rated objectives. The most important principle in preparing MC is identified as “focus on the most important and relevant information”, while the most important content element identified is “the entity's financial performance and position, and cash flows”.

This paper highlights the views of various stakeholders regarding MC reporting, particularly preparers and auditors whose views have not been noted previously in the literature. Also, this study should be of interest to both international and national financial reporting standard setters and regulators. It is particularly timely in view of the current IASB work towards revision and updating of MCPS1, as it provides current insights into what users, preparers and auditors perceive as the most important considerations for MC. This study also has implications for the XRB in NZ, where there is no prior research on stakeholders’ views on MC.

The objective of this study is to examine developments in the discursive practice of non-financial reporting in the public healthcare sector. In doing so, the authors investigate how the main reform foci of productivity and quality are represented, with a specific focus on the patient.

Drawing on critical discourse analysis (CDA), the authors conduct a longitudinal study (2007–2018) of healthcare reporting foci across the five administrative regions responsible for public hospitals in Denmark. The study analyses sixty annual reports and draws on contemporary reform documents over this period. CDA enables a micro-textual analysis, combined with macro-insights and discussions on social practice.

The findings show complex webs of presentation strategies, but in particular two changes occur during the period. First, the patient is centred throughout but the framing changes from productivity and waiting lists to quality and dialogue. Second, in the first years, the regions present themselves as actively highlighting financial and quality concerns, which changes to a passive and indirect form of presentation steered by indicators and patient legislation enforced by central government. This enhances passivity and distance in healthcare regional non-financial reporting where the regions seek to conform to such demands. Simultaneously, however, the authors find a tendency to highlight very different local initiatives, which shows an attempt to go beyond a pure automatic mode of reporting found in earlier studies.

Responding to the literature on both healthcare and financial reporting, this study identifies novel links between micro-level texts and macro-level social practices, enabling insights into the potentially intertwined impacts of public-sector reporting. The authors offer insights into the complexity of the construction of non-financial reporting in the public sector, which has a wider impact and different intentions than private-sector reporting.