THE QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF INTEGRATED REPORTING: A STRUCTURED LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

Purpose: In December 2022, the European Union implemented the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. It is intended to strengthen non-financial and financial information in corporate reporting to meet the growing requirements of an organization’s stakeholders. The quality of this information is essential to increase the usefulness of stakeholders’ decisions. Therefore, the article aims to give a comprehensive overview of the relevant literature that assesses characteristics for the quality of Integrated Reporting. On the one hand, it analyses the insights and reviews the critiques associated with quality assessment. On the other hand, the paper outlines future research paths to clarify which quality-enhancing elements in Integrated Reporting are essential.

Design / Methodology / Approach: The research is based on a qualitative research design. It develops a structured literature review and sheds light on the empirical state of the art. The papers are examined by using document analysis and structured content analysis.

Findings: The results highlight that the research field of Integrated Reporting is becoming increasingly important; most of the papers come from Italy. The results indicate that the quality of integrated reports is significantly related to company-specific factors. However, the results also show that there are still many open future research paths to fully capture the quality assessment of Integrated Reporting.

Research Implications / Limitations: The paper reveals the classical limitations of qualitative research. In addition, due to the tight inclusion criteria and novelty of the research field, the sample size is limited.

Contribution / Originality / Value: This paper presents a state-of-the-art structured literature review. It offers insights into the quality assessment of Integrated Reporting and the corresponding decision’s usefulness of information. To the researcher’s knowledge, no paper investigates this topic with a wide-ranging structured literature review. Consequently, the paper adds value to academia, practitioners, and standard setters.

JEL Classification: L20, M10, M14, M40

Paper Classification: Literature Review