Integrated Reporting Assessment from the User's Perspective Using the Integrated Report Quality Index

Abstract

The last decades have seen a shift in the corporate reporting model, moving from financial disclosure to the triple bottom line approach, including information about financial, environmental and social capital, also referred to as a sustainability reporting. These changes have been driven by stakeholder pressure on corporate transparency and emerging disclosure regulation. The International Integrated Reporting Council aimed to add value to sustainability reporting by developing integrated reporting (IR), seeking not only to combine financial and non-financial reporting but to show connectivity between them and provide a clear picture of how the company can create and sustain value over the short, medium and long term. This approach has been followed by a great number of corporations since its initiation in 2010. Given that the IR framework is rather principles-based, the quality of such reports differs from company to company. The main objective of this paper is to assess the quality of IR from the user's perspective. We analyse companies listed in IBEX 35 and compare the evolution of the IR quality in 2016 and 2019. To do so, an index was developed measuring the quality of the integrated report based on elements such as visuality, navigability, technological elements and business model description. Our findings show that while, in 2016, companies operating in critical sectors tended to have a generally higher IR quality, there were no significant differences in 2019 between companies operating in critical and non-critical sectors, and the general quality has decreased in favour of the quantity of information.