Integrated Reporting Framework Application: A European Case Study in the Financial Sector

Abstract

The ongoing academic debate about Integrated Reporting (IR) outlines that a particular interest shall be accorded to the financial sector organizations. Furthermore, previous researches in the field of an IR demonstrates the need of further research in the developing the actual knowledge of the advancement and implementation of IR and how are companies applying the guiding principles given by the framework. Therefore, this research aims to analyze to what extent European Union financial sector organization are following the IIRF guidance. Using a sample of 140 annual reports, a manual content analysis has been employed to identify the compliance evolution of financial sector organizations towards the IIRF contents elements, for the period 2013-2017. Results reveals the attention given by financial organisations, toward the “Organisational Overview”, “Risks & Opportunities” and “Business Model” content elements of IR. While the categories that remain unforeseen are “Performance & Outcomes”, “Other Elements” but the problematical category is “Future Outlook” with the lowest disclosure degree.