Investors and stakeholders rely on high-quality integrated reports to obtain social, environmental and ethical information for decision-making. A striking weakness found in recent research on integrated reports is the way certain items of social, environmental and ethical information are excluded while other items are repeated. There is accordingly much confusion, clutter and fragmentation in the integrated reporting landscape. There are as yet no reports on the long-term effect of mandatory integrated reporting on the quality of information. Through a detailed content review of the information companies report on, more insight can be gained into this question five years after the mandatory implementation of King III, which requires companies to provide integrated reports. The study used a similar approach to that of Solomon and Maroun (2012), reviewing the integrated reports of four companies with high social and environmental impact, over a period of three years (2012 to 2014). The companies" integrated reports were reviewed in terms of social, environmental and ethical items. The results indicate that there has been a distinct decrease in the amount of information provided in integrated reports but, more importantly, there still exists significant uncertainty as to the amount of reporting that is required. The results of this study provides evidence that regulators may have to provide more detailed guidelines as to the reporting duties of companies. It also indicates to 1 managers that their approach to integrated reporting may have to be revised to ensure useful information is provided to stakeholders.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.