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Despite the expected benefits to stakeholders, as well as the number of contributes aiming at identifying and proposing best practices on the integrated reporting (IR) adoption, it seems that the IR struggles to be diffused in companies. Several are the reasons explaining this evidence. It could mainly be the consequence of some critical issues underlying IR implementation, such as difficulties in the complete application of the IR framework.

Strictly related to this last aspect is the topic of the IR quality that recently has begun to gain interest both in the literature and in the empirical research. Particularly, the issues of IR quality and its determinants now appear to be more important than the IR quantity.

Starting from these premises, this chapter aims to identify the determinants of IR quality. The authors have identified main drivers of IR quality, considering previous studies on voluntary disclosure and in particular on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability disclosure while with reference to the quality assessment of IR, the authors have used the Integrated Reporting Scoreboard, recently proposed in the literature.

After developing the research hypothesis, an empirical analysis has been carried out on a sample of IRs issued by 55 companies in a three-year period.

The main research results highlight, on the one hand, that the main determinants of IR quality are the country where the company operates, in particular European ones and mandatory IR countries; on the other hand, industry and firm’s size don’t seem to have a positive impact on IR quality.

The paper examines integrated reporting (IR) practices of two Japanese universities and three South African universities by evaluating and comparing their 2019 integrated reports.

A multiple case study research method is used in this study.

The paper reveals that IR is in its infancy at the sample universities. Some universities have initiated disclosing information to their stakeholders on how they create value. However, the universities lack a comprehensive approach to integrating financial and non-financial information, thereby affecting the IR disclosure quality. The findings indicate that informal coercive pressure of South African universities is a primary driving factor that enables the universities to achieve a higher IR disclosure quality than their Japanese counterparts.

This paper argues that institutional theory is relevant for explaining the differences in IR practices of the universities in the two different jurisdictional settings.

The research will be of interest to university administrators, policymakers, regulators and other stakeholder groups of universities. The assessment of integrated reports serves as a first step to help the universities improve IR practices as well as to facilitate the diffusion of IR in higher education institutions (HEIs) globally. There is also a need for universities to pay more attention to the storytelling of their value creation in future IR disclosures.

It is the first to assess the IR quality of the Japanese sample universities as well as the first to conduct a comparative analysis for IR practices of universities in two different jurisdictional settings that have adopted IR. The findings of this study add to the current scholarly debate on universities' ability to tell their stories on their value creation to stakeholders via integrated reports.

This study aims to investigate the quality of disclosure of a cutting-edge reporting tool – integrated reporting (<IR>) – in terms of its effectiveness to report on COVID-19 pandemic information, its ability to provide forward-looking information and risk impact implications, and its quality determinants in challenging times.

Thanks to a content analysis of 247 <IR> for FY20, an integrated reporting disclosure score was developed to assess the disclosure quality provided by the sampled companies. Three research questions were tested through logistic regressions.

Non-financial disclosure activities struggle to provide adequate information in terms of potential future scenarios, risk assessment and forward-looking analyses. However, companies incorporated in “Anglo-Saxon” territories drafted integrated reports of higher quality. More recently, incorporated companies have made a greater effort to measure and report COVID-19 pandemic impacts on environmental, social and governance and business activities, also increasing their risk assessment and mitigation efforts. Concerning the determinants of disclosure quality, leverage, corporate governance structures, country of incorporation and belonging to “high impact” industries all lead to a higher quality of <IR> disclosure.

Examining in detail corporate social responsibility activities and corporate governance integrity is pivotal to orienting strategy towards sustainable trajectories: to do so, corporate reporting and disclosure practices are essential tools. In this context, corporate governance systems that emphasize board diversity are proven, even in disruptive circumstances, to play a crucial role in providing corporate reports of higher quality. High disclosure quality that goes beyond mere financial results is considered to be necessary to remain competitive strategically, socially and environmentally.

The purpose of this paper is to present a formalisation of the “online transparency” concept in particular firms’ disclosures, employing basic microeconomics. Relevant literature from the accounting, economics and finance fields, along with specific documents regarding micro-simulation as a technique to capture diversity in data sets, is surveyed.

A class of Stone-Geary utility functions is proposed as an analytical tool. A first simulation of public policies is introduced, exploring its impact on corporate firms and their preferences for online disclosure, specifically in Europe. Moreover, the author study corporate firm digital disclosure and compulsory disclosure policy specifically in Europe, exploring whether the size of the firm, country and sector of operation are relevant to explaining the differences in firms’ behaviour and whether these explanatory factors remain after the application of several types of policies.

Quantitative policies, using this denomination to refer to those that directly affect the amounts of money dedicated to online disclosure, or its unitary costs, seem to have a less substantial effect than those that the author could call qualitative policies (stating minimum requirements for all companies or promoting broader scrutiny by means of internationalisation).

These last policies could also be less expensive for public agencies, as the quantitative ones should be supported by some kind of subsidy or tax benefit system. The paper contains certain mathematical assumptions that will need to be relaxed in further works.

Finally, a full research agenda arises from this first attempt, from which both conceptual and methodological lessons can be learned.

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.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the Danish Guideline Project (DGP) and its subsequent fate within participating companies since its conclusion in late 2002. Particular focus is placed on the traction that the intellectual capital statement (ICS) approach to reporting, as the principal outcome of the project, was able to acquire in practice.

Following the reconstruction of the original sample of 102 companies that originally participated in the project, a survey using semi-structured interviews was pursued among 64 individuals who were identified as having some involvement with the guideline project and/or producing ICSs in these companies. In addition to the interviews, a range of secondary information has been used to supplement the primary data and research protocol.

The project was found to have enjoyed only modest success and thereby failed to achieve any substantial traction among the participating companies and related public stakeholders. On balance, however, respondents believed that the exercise had been a positive experience, with benefits for the internal management of the companies, as well as for human capital (employees). The obstacles that radical initiatives such as the ICS continue to face should not be underestimated.

A single study of a specific initiative necessarily entails many limitations. It is conceivable that the views of some of the participants in the guideline project who are absent from the present sample may provide details of a different experience, although it is unlikely that these would seriously challenge the findings reported here.

This study is the first to explore the fate of the critically acclaimed ICS approach among companies participating in the DGP.

This paper aims to provide an overview of the development of approaches to measuring and reporting on intangibles since the mid‐1990s, and to identify intellectual capital self‐accounts as a possible means of continuing this process in a beneficial way.

Principally a literature review, the paper provides the opportunity to extend earlier, initial thoughts on the promise of intellectual capital self‐accounts.

Given the importance of primary intellectual capital (“people”) in the creation of intangibles (secondary intellectual capital), the paper draws attention to the limited role hitherto ascribed to people in reporting on intangibles in particular.

The value of the paper lies principally in the identification of possible content for self‐accounts in the context of brands and health and wellbeing as important intangibles.