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A goal of integrated reporting (IR) under the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC)’s leadership is to provide clearly written, comprehensible and accessible information. In light of this objective, the purpose of this paper is to explore the readability and accessibility of integrated reports, an issue magnified by the IIRC’s continual commitment to clear and readable report language, and its intention for IR to become the corporate reporting norm.

In a whole text software facilitated analysis, the study utilises readability measures and supplementary measures of reader accessibility in a multi-year analysis of a large sample of global integrated reports sourced from the IIRC examples database.

The findings highlight the low readability of analysed integrated reports and indicate that readability is not improving. The supplementary measures suggest sub-optimal use of visual communication forms and overuse of structural presentation techniques which may contribute to reader accessibility of the analysed reports.

The study extends readability analysis to an emerging corporate reporting phenomenon and its findings contribute to the growing IR literature. The study applies supplementary measures of reader accessibility which advance the methods available to assess the communication efficacy of integrated and other corporate reports.

The analysis of the readability and accessibility of integrated reports in the study indicates that the IIRC’s goal of clear, comprehensible and accessible reporting is not reflected by reporters’ practices. This has implications for the IIRC, reporting organisations, report readers and regulators.

The study represents the first large-scale analysis of the readability and accessibility of global integrated reports.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comment on “The struggle to fabricate accounting narrative obfuscation: An actor-network-theoretic analysis of a failing project” by Brian Rutherford.

The paper discusses issues highlighted by Rutherford regarding the unresolved limitations of the Flesch formulaic approach to readability analysis and the narrow focus of readability research in accounting.

Commencing with an overview of an important shift in the use of the Flesch formula in accounting readability research in 2004, the paper outlines the emergence of supplementary measures and proxies of readability and reader accessibility of accounting prose. When used in combination with Flesch, the two measures augment readability analysis, ameliorate the formula’s limitations and broaden readability research scope and focus.

The paper gives impetus to the development of additional supplementary measures and proxies of readability and reader access which are necessary to further expand the horizons of accounting readability research and meet ongoing changes to the contemporary accounting communications landscape.

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 Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

Second part of a perspective of the development of the English brick and its use since the 15th century. Evaluates the many varying external influences such as trade links, architectural fashions, industrial developments and social factors that were invariably under‐pinning the styles and practices of the brickmaker and bricklayer down the centuries. Analyses this history in a series of chronological periods, i.e. 1485‐1603; 1603‐1830 and 1830‐1914. The pattern of study remaining consistent within each period, that being – what was the significant socio‐economic and political movement in relation to construction, and what, if any, part did it play in influencing change in the making and use of bricks. Looks at how and why brick manufacture and brickwork were responding, and when within these periods, considering who were the important figures in these changes and developments. Concludes that the brickwork, which marks each period, is the result not only of developments in the brickmaking process and the craft skills of the bricklayers, but also of foreign influences, social and economic changes in the country, and the inevitable gradual influence of building control, through legislation, necessary to ensure safe and sanitary housing in the urban environment of a major industrial country.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

THIS month will see, we understand, the publication of the results of months of regular work of the Library Association Post War Policy Committee, which we believe has been working with exemplary industry. We hear that the Council has endorsed the scheme and that it will deal with such points as the central control of libraries, the sort of area that can support a library service efficiently, the ideals of an efficient system, the training of librarians and many other matters. These topics could be envisaged as obvious ones for any such report to pronounce upon. We shall deal in some detail with them when the report is released but, even now, we can express our gratification that a programme and a policy have been enunciated well before the end of the war is in sight. This does not mean that the report is in any way sacrosanct; it can have no character of a legal document; it can and will be criticised and, no doubt, amended.

WE write on the eve of an Annual Meeting of the Library Association. We expect many interesting things from it, for although it is not the first meeting under the new constitution, it is the first in which all the sections will be actively engaged. From a membership of eight hundred in 1927 we are, in 1930, within measurable distance of a membership of three thousand; and, although we have not reached that figure by a few hundreds—and those few will be the most difficult to obtain quickly—this is a really memorable achievement. There are certain necessary results of the Association's expansion. In the former days it was possible for every member, if he desired, to attend all the meetings; today parallel meetings are necessary in order to represent all interests, and members must make a selection amongst the good things offered. Large meetings are not entirely desirable; discussion of any effective sort is impossible in them; and the speakers are usually those who always speak, and who possess more nerve than the rest of us. This does not mean that they are not worth a hearing. Nevertheless, seeing that at least 1,000 will be at Cambridge, small sectional meetings in which no one who has anything to say need be afraid of saying it, are an ideal to which we are forced by the growth of our numbers.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.