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The purpose of this paper is to add to the growing literature on integrated thinking and reporting by exploring the challenges of measuring integrated thinking in academic research. It provides a review of previous studies, presents a proxy measure to quantify the level of integrated thinking and investigates companies’ approach towards integrated thinking in practice.

Firstly, this study proposes a measure to quantify the level of integrating thinking. Secondly, this study implements factor analysis to identify a parsimonious representation and explore the relevance of each variable in explaining the proposed measure of integrated thinking. Thirdly, this study implements cluster analysis to determine the natural grouping of firms with a certain level of integrated thinking and to identify the existence of distinctive companies’ approaches.

The findings suggest that the proposed measure of integrated thinking could be reduced into two main principal components that explain the current practices and the future direction. Firms’ integrated thinking practices can be clustered into groups denoting various practices among firms, and exhibit routine over time. Across clusters, firms reveal significantly different characteristics highlighting the existence of systematic demographic differences.

This research does not endeavour to overcome all the measurement issues related to integrated thinking. It attempts to measure the level and companies’ approaches towards integrated thinking that can inspire further empirical studies in this field.

This study answers the call for an empirical investigation of the internal aspects of integration. This paper provides academics, companies, and policymakers with a proxy measure of integrated thinking that can inspire empirical studies and advance the understanding of integrated thinking practices.

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.

This study aims to develop a framework to systematize the emerging literature on integrated thinking and offers empirical insights on how integrated thinking has been practiced within an organization. The paper also introduces the contributions that compose the special issue “exploring integrated thinking in action: theoretical interpretations and evidence from the field” and outlines avenues for future research.

The paper critically reviews the literature on integrated thinking and proposes a framework that classifies prior studies into three areas, namely, integrated thinking and sustainable strategies; integrating thinking in practice; the concept and measures of integrated thinking. The study also provides an illustration of the ways in which integrated thinking has been adopted by a European energy company to shape and execute its purpose-driven strategy, as well as the benefits that have emerged. The paper uses the framework developed from the literature to introduce the contributions of the special issue and to suggest future research opportunities.

The study shows that while the literature on integrated thinking is still in its infancy, the evidence emerging from contemporary organizations supports empirical-driven research and stimulates a variety of theoretical and empirical contributions that will enable the academic debate to move forward.

The theoretical and practical insights offered by this study, together with those provided by the papers of this Meditari Accountancy Research special issue, will foster future research on integrated thinking. In particular, the framework developed in this paper may be drawn upon by researchers to plan new research projects on integrated thinking and its adoption within organizations.

This study aims to examine how integrated thinking principles can be used to assist those charged with governance during and after a crisis.

An autoethnographic approach was used to collect and reflect on information related to the economic, social and environmental impact of COVID-19. This was complemented with a bibliometric analysis of academic articles including “corporate governance”, “integrated thinking” and “crisis” as a keyword. This information was used to produce a data mind map of core themes. This was supplemented with a qualitative exploratory approach based on semi-structured interviews with 16 participants comprising preparers of financial statements, board members and corporate governance specialists to obtain insights into using integrated thinking in corporate governance during a crisis.

The results of the study indicate that those charged with governance can use integrated thinking to repurpose their business model by considering a multi-capital and multi-stakeholder perspective to value creation. The study highlights the importance of implementing a holistic capital integration process to gauge risks, capitalise on opportunities and improve business processes in response to a crisis. This can be leveraged by both the private and public sectors to manage a crisis and deal with the long-term indirect impacts of a crisis.

An integrated thinking approach can be used by both the private and public sectors to bolster confidence, tackle pressing social and environmental challenges and contribute to improved performance relative to the sector.

The expert interviews contribute empirical evidence to the profile of mainstream social and environmental accounting literature and offer a practical contribution by offering insights that can directly be used by organisations’ investors, non-governmental organisations and other stakeholders to manage a crisis. This paper also advances the sustainability agenda by assessing how a crisis can be managed in the context of a developing economy and advancing normative recommendations which will be broadly applicable to an international audience.

The purpose of this paper is to offer theoretical and practical insights on the ways in which integrated thinking is observed in practice. Integrated thinking is linked to integrated reporting, and described as an attribute or capacity for senior management to constructively manage tensions between the multiple capitals (manufactured, intellectual, human, natural, social and relationship as well as financial capital) in strategy, resource allocation, performance measurement and control.

A theoretical framework is developed from the accounting and systems thinking literature, linking integrated thinking to sustainability. Soft versus hard integrated thinking approaches are applied to contrast the siloed management of sustainability with a model that focuses on relationships and broader indicators of societal health and well-being. Practical illustrations of the conceptualised framework are presented for discussion and for further empirical research.

The illustrative examples offer a diversity of corporate, government and not-for-profit viewpoints, providing evidence of both hard and soft integrated thinking in practice. Valuable insights are provided into innovative approaches that foster and make explicit the soft integrated thinking skills and map them to broader societal outcomes.

Potential problems can arise if hard integrated thinking dominates over the soft, and data required for internal management accounting purposes become narrow, linear and segregated. Routines and practices will then be based on quasi-standards, further concealing the soft integrated thinking that might be occurring within the organisation.

With theoretical roots in systems thinking, this paper contributes to the relatively underexplored area of integrated thinking in accounting for sustainability.

This paper aims to examine the level of disclosure on content elements of integrated reporting (IR) in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales higher education institutions (HEIs). The authors suggest that integrated thinking is an internal process that organizations can follow to increase the level of disclosure on IR that can be used as an effective mechanism to enhance accountability with stakeholders.

International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) guidelines and content analysis are used to analyze IR content elements in HEI reports from 2014-2016.

The results indicate a significant increase in the trend and extent of IR content elements. The HEI-specific characteristics examined, such as establishment of HEI; adoption of IR framework and governing board size are all statistically and positively associated with IR content elements disclosure. This paper introduces signalling theory to explore the idea that appropriate communication via integrated thinking can close the gap between the organization and its stakeholders via increased level of disclosure on IR content elements.

The results will assist policymakers and regulators to assess the benefits of voluntary implementation of IR at HEIs and evaluate possible mandatory implementation of IIRC guidelines. Second, the findings can assist managers of institutions interested in implementing IR.

This study recommends universities to explicitly address IR issues in reporting, as this will increase their impact as leaders of educational thought in addition to their roles as partners, advisors, counselors and assessors.

This study explores whether HEIs in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales provide disclosure on IIRC content elements as a reflection of integrated thinking and whether the connectivity and interdependence between different departments will help to signal to stakeholders how HEIs create value for society.

The purpose of this paper is to provide early assessments of the changes for corporate reporting processes, which an emerging initiative like integrated reporting (IR) will require. The authors also consider the potential for these changes to contribute towards resolving major problems such as financial and environmental crises. IR is gaining momentum globally, and the implementation of some form of future mandatory requirement in this regard appears likely.

The authors begin by developing a reporting checklist based on the requirements for IR, which they use to assess the gap between current “best practice” reporting processes and IR. They then propose systems thinking, a widely accepted approach to problem-solving, as a theoretical basis for assessing the IR Framework and for deeper consideration of the gap analysis. They demonstrate, at a paradigm level, how systems thinking can be used to assess IR and find that IR has the potential to offer specific and implementable strategies for operationalising systems thinking principles.

The authors assess 2011 annual reports and related online reporting practices for four New Zealand “best practice reporting entities”, using their reporting checklist. Although none of their sample entities published a full integrated report for 2011, reporting scores range from 70 to 87 per cent. The findings suggest that current reporting processes lack the integration, oversight and due attention to future uncertainties required by IR. While this appears to be a relatively small gap, systems thinking principles indicate that these deficiencies may be critical to sustainability and financial stability, the stated aims of IR.

The normal limitations which apply to small sample studies.

The IR reporting checklist and systems thinking proposal could be used by policymakers, standard setters and firms to assist in assessing IR’s potential and the additional requirements it will impose for corporate reporting.

This study answers calls in the literature for a reactivation of the normative research agenda by assessing IR against systems thinking, a widely accepted approach to problem-solving. It contributes further to an understanding of IR through the development of a unique reporting checklist and by offering empirical evidence derived from application of this checklist.

This paper aims to explore the linkages between integrated reporting (IR) and organisations’ internal processes, specifically focusing on investigating the internal mechanisms of change that can lead organisations to adopt IR disclosure and how this impacts on integrated thinking internally.

The paper draws upon previous analysis and insights provided in the IR academic literature, as well as analysing several directives, policy and framework pronouncements. The study also draws on the management accounting change literature, using it as a lens to observe early adopters’ practice. In addition, it provides detailed case studies considering the internal processes of change in five early adopters of the integrated reporting framework (<IRF>) and whether the adoption leads to internal “integrated thinking”. Five Italian public sector organisations are analysed, and the authors make use of official documents, press releases and in-depth semi-structured interviews with the major internal actors.

The research highlights that the processes of change in organisations adopting IR is their adoption of a way of thinking, that is, integrated thinking, as a result of the process of internalisation.

Given the short history of IR, this sample is small due to the small number of early adopters.

The paper provides academics and policymakers with insights into the process of change to be considered while adopting the <IRF> and responds to calls in the IR literature for further field-based studies on IR’s impact on internal processes. Also, the paper highlights that the European Directive on the disclosure of non-financial and diversity information (2014/95/EU) has the potential to increase environmental, social and governance disclosures amongst European companies.

This study aims to offer empirical evidence on how integrated thinking affects the integrated reporting (IR) practice and how integrated thinking originates from board and management involvement, cross-functional integration and integral link between capitals and strategies.

This study is cross-sectional and uses a mixed-method approach. The empirical data for the quantitative approach were collected from the 129 public companies listed on Colombo Stock Exchange in Sri Lanka. The personale responsible for preparing the annual report are selected as the respondents of this study. This study used partial least square modelling to test the hypotheses. The quantitative approach results are triangulated across a qualitative research approach in semi-structural interviews with ten responsible officers of integrated reporting practices.

The central finding of this study is the significant positive relationship between integrated thinking and integrated reporting practice. The qualitative results supported the quantitative findings and show that board and management involvement, cross-functional integration and integral link between capital and strategy enhance the integrated reporting practice. Top management and board management have positive beliefs about the integrated reporting practice; they initiate, encourage, influence, involve and support it. Furthermore, all company departments are involved with the integrated reporting led by the finance department and practice good coordination, communication and collaboration between departments. Moreover, it also evidenced their concern about the linkage between capital and strategy and how they do it in their organisation when practising integrated reporting.

The firms which intend to practice or enhance integrated reporting will be benefited from this study. Hence, this research assists in constructing IT through the direct role of the board and senior leadership, breaking down silos to diffuse IR throughout structures and processes, and concentrating on strategies while managing their capitals and relationships over the long term.

This study provides the initial quantitative empirical evidence on the impact of integrated thinking on integrated reporting practice. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to operationalise both integrated thinking and integrated reporting based on a questionnaire that developed and tested both constructs as higher-order reflective formative and on the relationship between integrated thinking and integrated reporting. The mixed-method approach to examine the relationship between integrated thinking and integrated reporting provides additional insights into the existing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the intellectual capital (IC) ontology in an integrated reporting context to explore the function that integrated report (IR) preparers assign to IC elements and the role of integrated thinking in this process.

Social ontology theory helps elucidate how an energy-sector company socially constructed an IC ontology in which IC is a core element of the value creation story told in the IR. The empirical analysis benefited from in-depth interviews with the corporate staff.

The subjective nature of IC ontology emerges, in that IC’s function is defined during the very process of IR preparation. The intangible elements drive sustainability-oriented financial value creation according to the sustainability approach embraced by the company’s business model. Integrated thinking both facilitates this perspective on IC is shared among various departments of the company and provides a procedure for scrutinising what counts as IC in this integrated reporting context.

The research scope is limited to the IR preparation process. Further research could explore IC ontologies beyond this process.

This study is the first to explore IC ontology empirically within an innovative integrated reporting context. It opens paths to further research on the relationships between IC and integrated thinking.