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The initial rationale for developing integrated reporting included addressing the failures of traditional reporting to address sustainability issues. Subsequently, the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) modified its stated objectives to emphasise integrated thinking and value creation. There has been debate on whether the IIRC’s process for developing its integrated reporting framework was subject to regulatory capture by the accounting profession (Flower, 2015; Adams, 2015; Thomson, 2015). This paper aims to provide additional evidence on the extent to which this regulatory capture occurred, with an update on current developments.

Data from interviews with key participants in the integrated reporting framework’s development and the IIRC’s Council and Working Group meeting minutes were analysed to identify to what extent the change in the IIRC’s focus can be explained by regulatory capture theory.

The findings show that the integrated reporting framework’s development was subject to regulatory capture by accountants. However, the extent of capture was mitigated to some extent by processes adopted in its development. This is consistent with regulatory capture theory.

This paper critically examines the debate on the extent to which the sustainability message has been lost as a result of regulatory capture. It provides an in-depth analysis of the IIRC’s treatment of sustainability which explores the application of regulatory capture theory and examines evidence not considered in previous studies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine formal participation in the early phase of the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC’s) standard-setting. The objective of the paper is to shed light on the characteristics of lobbying parties and the determinants of their lobbying behavior toward the IIRC. Additionally, the most important points of contestation regarding the IIRC’s initial proposal for integrated reporting are identified and discussed.

The authors analyze comment letters issued toward the IIRC’s 2011 discussion paper on the basis of a content analysis. The analysis is guided mainly by Sutton’s (1984) rational-choice model of lobbying and by findings from extant financial accounting lobbying research. The analysis of the data is both quantitative and qualitative.

The paper improves the understanding of the political nature of standard-setting in the context of integrated reporting. Among other things, the authors find that comment letters toward the IIRC’s discussion paper are mainly written by large multinational firms (as opposed to small- and medium-sized ones) and by preparers (as opposed to users). The authors also observe active lobbying by sustainability service firms and professional bodies which tend to take a critical position vis-à-vis the discussion paper’s emphasis on investor needs and shareholder value creation. Moreover, the qualitative analysis reveals that respondents voice different concerns regarding, for instance, the scope of audience of integrated reporting, issues of materiality and the relationship between integrated reporting and other existing reporting frameworks.

The analysis is limited to a consideration of the 2011 discussion paper of the IIRC. The IIRC’s more recent and forthcoming proposals will likely provide a basis to extend the paper’s findings and allow investigation of the role of lobbying for the further development of the framework.

The paper is, to the best of the knowledge, the first one to explore lobbying behavior by means of comment letters in the context of integrated reporting.

Integrated thinking is central to the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC’s) integrated reporting (IR) framework, which is in turn is related to a potential resurgence of intellectual capital (IC) reporting. However, it remains unclear how key IR stakeholders understand this concept in theory or practice. The purpose of this paper is to explore how key stakeholders interpret integrated thinking; and how pilot organizations are applying integrated thinking in practice.

The study involved in-depth semi-structured interviews with key IR stakeholders in Australia, including two IR pilot organizations, one professional association, an accounting professional body, an accounting firm and two IIRC officials.

First, the IIRC has not fully defined and articulated the concept of integrated thinking, and there is no shared consensus among practitioners. Second, there is evidence of an evolving understanding of integrated thinking within practice. What remains unclear is how this understanding will develop over time.

Since interviews were conducted with a relatively small sample of participants in Australia, the results may not be generalizable across different contexts. The study emphasizes the need to interpret carefully IR’s potential contribution to organizational practice through either reporting in general, or IC reporting in particular.

Despite the centrality of integrated thinking to IR, there has been limited research to date on the concept. Clarifying what integrated thinking means in practice can improve our understanding of a key IR concept, and can advance our understanding of IR’s potential to improve IC reporting and research.

There are still many different theoretical approaches and practical interpretations about what an integrated report is. Starting from this premise, the overall purpose of this chapter is to critically analyze the relationship between integrated reporting (IR) and social/sustainability disclosure. Indeed, although some scholars considered IR as a tool to improve the sustainability approach of the companies allowing to disclose more relevant social information, others are more critical about the potentiality of IR to improve social disclosure. Therefore, the general research question is: Is there a natural link between IR and social disclosure (true love) or is the IR a practice to “normalize” the social disclosure and accounting (forced marriage)?

In the attempt to provide a preliminary answer to the research question, the chapter analyzes what is the approach of three categories: (1) academics; (2) soft-regulators; and (3) companies. From the methodological point of view, a mixed method of analysis has been adopted.

From the analysis of the three different points of view, IR can be considered as a “contested concept” because of the heterogeneous and sometimes conflicting interpretations and implementation that are done on this type of report. This leads to relevant theoretical and practical implications.

This study aims to investigate the role of institutional and stakeholder interaction in the development of integrated reporting policy by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC). It helps advance the theory of integrated reporting and offers insights into its fundamental concepts and relevant issues.

A flexible pattern-matching qualitative research approach is used and an analytical framework of integrated reporting historical foundations and conceptual background is developed. An IIRC case analysis is conducted by using a chronological content analysis of the International Integrated Reporting Framework and related initiatives and publications for integrated reporting policy pronouncements.

Institutional and stakeholder pressures within both the organization’s macro and micro contexts have played an effective role in transforming corporate reporting practices. In an integrated reporting context, institutional forces of normative and mimetic isomorphism seem to have more influence on organizations than coercive pressures, where stakeholder pressures with limited official power derive influence from their legitimacy while urgency is evidently implied. Findings indicate that integrated reporting policy has emerged analogously with the institutional environment and stakeholders’ expectations. The distinct nature of integrated reporting has caused a paradigm shift from silo thinking of wealth creation to integrated thinking of value creation.

This is an exploratory study that does not consider different prominent integrated reporting models. It has important implications for policymakers in articulating the integration of financial and nonfinancial metrics for reporting overall corporate performance. It can help academics build on integrated reporting foundations for conducting future research and assist practitioners in operationalizing integrated reporting policy into practice. Moreover, it has potential prospects for international business in developing integrated reporting policies and strategies aimed at creating mutual value in specific international contexts.

Integrated reporting represents a new internationally developing reporting trend with distinct reporting features and foundations for value creation. The study provides considerable addition to emerging research into the growing awareness of integrated reporting policy, develops a conceptual model of institutional and stakeholder interaction and theorizes on such interplay, identifies the potential influences under which integrated reporting is likely to occur and offers key insights into integrated reporting policy. Hence, it contributes to the ongoing global challenge of promoting the reporting transition to integrated reporting and its perceived future endorsement.

Drawing on Suchman’s conception of cognitive legitimacy and Boswell’s account of the political functions of expert knowledge, this paper aims to study the due process followed by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) prior to the publication of the first version of the International Integrated Reporting Framework (IIRF). Specifically, the author analyses the lobbying strategies used in the comment letters sent by a subset of lobbyists, “the experts”, represented by accounting bodies and firms, regulators and academics.

From both a form- and meaning-oriented analysis, this paper focuses on how the experts resorted to the functions of knowledge when they took part in the IIRF’s public consultation. The author first carries out a quantitative content analysis of the responses to the 2013 Consultation Draft submitted by those constituents considered as accounting expert lobbyists. Then, the author analyse how these actors framed their comments under expert knowledge to legitimise the IIRC, the IIRF and the accounting profession itself.

The findings suggest that the expert groups welcomed the opportunity, not simply to legitimise the IIRC through their democratic support, but to provide a technocratic settlement that ensures the due process is based on the mobilisation of expert knowledge as a legitimate source. By drawing on the cognitive legitimacy of expert lobbyists, the IIRC drew on the political functions of expert knowledge to reduce uncertainty and gain stability.

Analysis of the lobbying strategies used by the accounting experts whose position could make a difference and receive more attention from the IIRC makes this contribution of particular interest, especially since the first version of the IIRF sought to guide disclosure and sustainable business practices around the world.

Experts as political actors play a legitimising role since they are capable of producing relevant knowledge that, due to its nature and scope, certainly affects policymaking and sustainable development.

This research provides a sociopolitical perspective to comprehend how some lobbying strategies, in this case, of expert actors, contribute to legitimising a standard-setter body and its endeavours in the context of voluntary standards.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the current discussions about the concept of Integrated Reporting (IR) and provides a practical and useful proposal of an instrument that could help to apply the IR concept in corporate practice.

The study uses a deductive normative research approach.

Based on a comprehensive review of international literature and research, the paper argues that a structured presentation of the traditional measure of “value added” in a so-called “value added statement” (VAS) has the potential to serve as a practical and effective reporting instrument for IR. The proposed VAS not only meets the guiding principles of IR but also reports on the monetary effects of different types of capital included in IR and in this way complements and represents the concept of IR very well.

The authors intend to stimulate the academic as well as institutional discussion on how to apply the concept of IR at the corporate level. As the characteristics of the proposed VAS comply well with the guiding principles and concepts developed in the Integrated Reporting Framework project of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) and with the ultimate objective of integrated thinking, the study can inform the current considerations within and outside of the IIRC.

The future of IR and the probability of its world-wide application in practice will depend on the development of appropriate reporting tools that incorporate the central ideas of IR, currently no such reporting tools exist. In this paper the authors make an argument for a VAS as a complementing, useful and therefore appropriate reporting tool for IR.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the integrated report (IR) of a South African public university (UFS), by comparing it with the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) framework, to verify whether UFS IR matches the IIRC framework main aims, which is integrating IC and non-IC information into a single report for stakeholders.

The paper employs the case study approach, which is appropriate when a researcher needs to conduct a holistic and in-depth analysis of a complex phenomenon in its real-life context. As such, this method is particularly suitable for exploring intellectual and social capitals, which is complex and context-dependent by nature.

UFS IR includes the content elements of the IIRC framework as labels, but it does not deepen their meaning. As regards the IIRC guidelines principles, the analysis of the UFS IR shows that it does not seem to follow them. Briefly, the data do not have an outlook orientation, the information is not interconnected, the stakeholder relationships are not highlighted and the organisational ability to create value is not disclosed.

The implications based on the “bad” experience of UFS IR aims to extend the findings of the case study by shedding light on the levers and the barriers that managers have to face when implementing an IRing project in their organisations.

To the best of the knowledge the research is the first investigating the IR theme in the public sector, specifically the higher education sector, dealing with disclosing IC (and non-IC) information within a new reporting mode: the IR.

This study is an analysis that aims to understand the rationale behind the concept of value creation contained in the integrated reporting (IR) framework. As such, the authors examined the quality of the disclosures made in integrated reports by measuring the level to which the six capitals (6Cs) have been integrated into disclosures on value creation.

The IR framework’s value creation model focuses on six content elements and three guiding principles. Hence, the present analysis combines content analysis with quantitative measures in the form of a bespoke Integrated Disclosure Index. The index measures the level of integration found in the disclosures instead of the mere presence or absence of mentioned capitals, content elements and guiding principles in isolation. The present sample comprised the 2016 integrated/sustainability reports for 184 listed companies sourced from the Integrated Reporting Examples Database.

The 6Cs are well disclosed in form but only partially disclosed in substance. Further, overall levels of integration between the capitals, the content elements and the guiding principles are higher than average. Disclosures on materiality, business models and stakeholder relationships are somewhat lacking, as are the related medium- and long-term disclosures on outlook.

The paper contributes to the academic debate on IR by building a case for holistically assessing the substance of integrated reports. Considering that the IR value creation model can underpin and align with the 17 UN sustainable development goals, the authors show how the fundamental concept of the 6Cs sustaining value creation is understood and implemented differently across the various elements and principles of the IR framework.

This research also provides guidance for overcoming some of the practical hurdles associated with assessing the quality of reports because the authors provide tools for spotlighting the substance of disclosures over their form.

This paper delves into the substance of integrated reports by assessing how well the 6Cs have been integrated into disclosures on the content elements and guiding principles of the IR framework. In contrast to previous IR research that has mainly analysed capital, elements and principles in isolation, the authors develop an index assessing the integration of these three fundamental concepts of IR.

This paper aims to investigate the adherence level of current company reports to the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) integrated reporting framework through analysis of whether and to what extent those reports include the content elements of this framework. This study also aims to examine the impact of corporate sustainability characteristics on the adherence level of current company reports to the integrated reporting framework.

The sample for this research comprises the non-financial companies which were listed on Borsa Istanbul, the Turkish stock exchange, as of 31 December 2015. The authors constructed a disclosure index based on the content elements of the IIRC reporting framework. They then measured the integrated reporting disclosure score (IRS) of each company through a manual content analysis of its annual reports and stand-alone sustainability reports. To test the hypotheses, the authors performed a number of statistical analyses.

The authors determined that current company reports mainly present generic risks rather than company-specific; provide positive information while dismissing negative information; present financial and non-financial initiatives separately; lack a strategic focus; and include backward-looking information rather than forward-looking information. Consistent with the predictions, the authors found that the IRS is significantly and positively associated with sustainability reporting, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) adoption, sustainability index listing and the presence of a sustainability committee.

This study contributes to the literature by enhancing the understanding of integrated reporting practices through the application of a checklist based upon the IIRC integrated reporting framework. Further, this study contributes to the literature by evaluating the impact of corporate sustainability characteristics on IRS.