Disclosing Information on Financial and Non-Financial Capitals in the Integrated Report: An Empirical Analysis of Financial Industry

Abstract

This study investigates how firms within the financial industry disclose financial and non-financial information in their integrated reports, by analyzing a sample of the banking sector published over five years (2014–2018). During the first phase, a content analysis methodology was conducted to investigate the disclosure level of six forms of capital, i.e., capitals. A principal component analysis then was implemented to reduce the dimensionality and investigate the relationship between capitals’ information. The main findings show that during the observed period, the focus mainly is on financial capital, while information on non-financial capitals is underdeveloped. A relationship exists among all non-financial capitals, but not between financial and non-financial capitals. The paper contributes to the academic debate on the use of integrated reports (IRs) in practice, providing useful insights regarding financial and non-financial disclosure.