Integrated Reporting for Turkish Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Abstract

Ever-increasing complexity of financial markets drives businesses to focus solely on financial performance. Measures to evaluate such performance establish criteria on benchmarks like profit margin, return on assets and equity, earnings per share and others. While these measures reveal performance, numerical values may lack indication with regard to value creation. Changing trends in the market with regard to advancements in technology can simply jeopardize the sustainability of business. Additionally, loyal customers are often enticed by competitive business. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which are usually the most vulnerable entities against financial distress, are being challenged the most in order to sustain their life spans. Financial performance as the only yardstick to evaluate the overall performance of businesses has become obsolete in today's market conditions. Aim of this paper is to present the invaluable benefits SMEs can attain by shifting their focus from merely financial performance measures to a more holistic philosophy of thinking by implementing Integrated Reporting (IR).