This article extends current knowledge in the field of integrated thinking and reporting (ITR) by providing new empirical evidence on the nature and determinants of companies' levels of integration (i.e. ITR levels). Based on legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory, we empirically investigate companies' levels of integration and examine the drivers of different ITR levels. Our results suggest that companies' levels of ITR, namely Holistic, Integrated, Conservative, and Minimalist, are related to company characteristics and tend to remain consistent over time exhibiting routine and imitation. Companies with greater size, leverage, bigger board size and meetings, as well as companies operating in sensitive industries and with higher environmental performance are more likely to exhibit a Holistic or Integrated level of integration, while Minimalist and Conservative levels are driven by the same variables in opposite direction. Furthermore, at country level, economic growth, market performance, citizens freedom and lower environmental performance significantly contribute to higher integration. These results could drive companies' choices alongside policymakers' initiatives, by identifying which levers should be pulled to achieve the desired level of integration, and suggest the need for a tailored approach rather than a one size fits all within the debate on the future developments of ITR.

Purpose 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. Design/methodology/approach 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. Findings 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. Research limitations/implications 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. Originality/value 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.

Purpose -This paper examines whether risk disclosure practices affect stock return volatility and company value in the European insurance industry.Design/methodology/approach -Using a self-constructed "Risk Disclosure Index for Insurers" (RDII) to measure the extent of information disclosed on risks and employing panel data regression on a sample of European insurers for 2005-2010, it tests: i) the relationship between RDII and stock return volatility; ii) whether this relationship is affected by financial crisis; iii) whether RDII affects insurance companies' embedded value.Findings -The main results indicate that higher RDII contributes to higher volatility, suggesting that "less is more" rather than "more is good". However, higher RDII leads to lower volatility when the insurer has a positive net income, thus "more is good when all is good" and "less is good when all is bad". Furthermore, the relationship between RDII and stock return volatility is not affected by financial crisis, raising concerns regarding the effectiveness of insurers' risk disclosure to reassure the market. Moreover, higher RDII is found to impact positively on embedded value, thus contributing towards higher firm value.Practical implications -The findings could drive insurers' choices on communication and transparency, alongside regulators' decisions about market discipline. They also suggest that risk disclosure could be used to strengthen market discipline and should be added to the other variables traditionally used in stock return volatility and firm value estimation models in the insurance industry.Originality/value -This paper offers new insights in the debate on the bright and dark sides of risk disclosure in the insurance industry and provides interesting implications for insurers and their stakeholders.Keywords Risk disclosure, Insurance companies, Financial crisis, Volatility, Embedded value JEL Codes G22, G14, G01 Paper type Research paper Page 1 of 24Review of Accounting and Finance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 R e v i e w o f A c c o u n t i n g a n d F i n a n c e 2 IntroductionIn recent years, several factors, including the global financial crisis, firms' need for capital, and market pressure, have led to an increased need for transparency and communication in the financial system. New and updated regulations have stressed this point, too, by introducing disclosure requirements (i.e., Basel III, MiFID II, and Solvency II). From this point of view, it is fundamental to investigate the impact of disclosure, as its effects could influence companies' ex ante choices on when, how, and what to communicate, as well as policymakers' initiatives on market discipline. This has important implications for stakeholders and companies themselves, thus raising the need to further investigate this phenomenon by testing whether a chan...

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Highlights1. The aim of this paper is to compare estimates of market risk for Islamic and conventional bank over for the period 2000-2013 across pre-financial crisis, during financial crisis and post financial crisis periods. To the best of our knowledge this is the first attempt to compare and contrast the market risk of Islamic banks with conventional banks. 2. We use estimates of Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) which incorporates losses beyond VaR as market risk measures for both univariate and multivariate portfolios. 3. Univariate analysis finds no discernible differences between Islamic and conventional banks. However, dynamic correlations obtained via a multivariate setting shows Islamic banks to be less riskier for both sets of conventional banks; and especially so during the recent global financial crisis. 4. The policy implications are: (i) that the inclusion of Islamic banks within asset portfolios may mitigate potential risk; (ii) that the Basel committee should consider the ES measure 2 of risk for Islamic banks in preference to the current VaR methodology, which overestimates the market risk of Islamic banks. Abstract We empirically analyze the market risk profiles of Islamic banks with two sets of conventional banks taken from the same geographical locations as Islamic banks and from a random global sample respectively for the period 2000-2013. Moreover, we divided our sample period into prefinancial crisis, during financial and post financial crisis. Estimates of Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) which incorporates losses beyond VaR are used as market risk measures for both univariate and multivariate portfolios. Our key input is the share price by market capitalization of publicly traded banks of similar size in Islamic and non-Islamic countries. Univariate analysis finds no discernible differences between Islamic and conventional banks. However, dynamic correlations obtained via a multivariate setting shows Islamic banks to be less riskier for both sets of conventional banks; and especially so during the recent global financial crisis. The policy implications are: (i) that the inclusion of Islamic banks within asset portfolios may mitigate potential risk; (ii) that the Basel committee should consider the ES measure of risk for Islamic banks in preference to the current VaR methodology, which over-estimates the market risk of Islamic banks.JEL classification: C53, C58, G01, G21