Over the last few years, companies are increasingly international, and a growing number of stakeholders is affected by the sustainability aspects of business, resulting in significant changes in how corporate information is both perceived and published. This scenario has led to many company Boards of Directors (BoD) voluntarily adopting a new communication tool, known as Integrated Reporting, (IR) which is a single disclosure document that satisfies stakeholders’ increasing need for information. This study wants to contribute to existing literature on the relationship between corporate governance and IR, investigating if board configuration (size, gender, and average age) influences its adoption. The analysis relies on a sample of 1,047 companies from 18 European countries for the year 2015. These results show a positive relationship between the decision to adopt IR and board size and female board members, whereas the older board members have a negative effect on it. Our findings present implications both from the theoretical and practical point of view. On a theoretical level, the research confirms that board diversity needs to be analysed more in detail, because of its contribution to company’s transparency. Moreover, the results provide to standard setters and regulators a useful insight of the important distinction among various board members’ features.

Nowadays, companies and markets are increasingly international and growing numbers of stakeholders are affected by the economic, social and environmental aspects of business, resulting in significant changes in how corporate information is both perceived and published. Over the last few years, this new scenario has led to many company boards voluntarily adopting an accounting and company performance communication tool, known as Integrated Reporting, (IR) which is a single disclosure document that satisfies stakeholders' increasing need for communication. This study's objective is to contribute to existing literature on the relationship between financial reporting and corporate governance, investigating into whether certain characteristics of the board - including numbers, gender, nationality, average age - influence decisions to adopt IR or not. The analysis was carried out on a sample of 120 Italian companies in different sectors for the year 2014. These results showed a positive relationship between the decision to use IR and the size of the board and the presence of female boardmembers, whereas the presence of foreign and older boardmembers had a negative effect on adopting IR.

This research, based on stakeholder theory and the national cultural dimensions, aims to test the influence of foreigners on board and its size on Integrated Reporting (IR) practices. The analysis is based on a sample of 1,058 European companies from 18 different countries, who adopted or not the IR for the year 2015, and it relies on a Logit. The dependent variable is a dummy (presenting or not the IR) and the independent variables are represented by the board characteristics (foreigners and size). The impact of the critical mass on the presence of foreigners and the cultural dimension on the basis of directors’ nationality was tested relying on the masculinity/femininity dimension of Hofstede. Besides, the directors’ country of origin was considered, namely if they belong to the major European countries presenting a wider IR diffusion. The relationship between foreigners on board and IR is found to be negative. This means that companies with at least one foreigner are less inclined to adopt IR. The results show that the boards with more of three foreign administrators have a major propensity to adopt the IR. The membership of the directors in countries with a feminist culture also has a positive effect.

Nowadays, Italian Savings Banks (SBs) are providing financial support for the development of local economies as full commercial competitors and players of the Italian banking sector. The study points out the strong link between efficiency performance and the evolution of the sector characterised by a transition from a territorial proximity to a regional brand and thus to a partial collapse. Via the non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis – Slack Based Model methodology, the evaluation of the SBs efficiency score is carried out over the 2010-2015 period. The results show that SBs belonging to a Bank Group regularly outperform the Stand-Alone ones. Thus, generally increasing technical efficiency, managerial efficiency and scale efficiency confirm the sectorial evolution. The study is innovative for considering the question of SBS and territorial branding of banking groups. Moreover, its results help to understand how to avoid the same mistakes of the past in the future, therefore, under current circumstances, it is particularly important for scholars, managers, people of local communities, and decision-makers.

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