INTEGRATED REPORTING ELEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES IN ASIAN PUBLIC LISTED COMPANIES’ REPORTS: AN INSTITUTIONALIST APPROACH

• Main Author: NURUL WAHIDA BINTI ABDULLAH
• Format: text::Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2023

An effective disclosure of corporate information has increasingly becoming more critical as the world market begins a long shift toward a higher share of market-based financing. In the future, Integrated Reporting (IR) is expected to play a bigger role in promoting understanding of interdependencies between various capitals that a company has and support integrated thinking, decision-making and actions that focus on the creation of value over the short, medium and long term. Motivated by the rise of IR and taking into consideration the nonmandatory stage of IR in most countries, this study aims to provide evidence on the extent of which IR related elements and principles have been incorporated in various companies’ reporting medium with a specific focus on top companies from selected Asian countries namely Malaysia, Singapore, India and Japan. This objective is achieved through content analyzing a total of top 120 companies listed in the stock exchange of the respective four countries, using two indices i.e. Content Elements and Guiding Principles. Using institutional theory as a basis, further analysis is conducted to test the potential role of three institutional factors on the extent of IR reporting. The findings show all 120 companies are disclosing information similar to what has been listed under the content elements and the guiding principle of the IIRC framework with none of the companies scoring 0 for both indices. These findings suggest that Asian public limited companies are not very far behind when it comes to IR reporting as compared to what is expected by the IR Framework. In testing the role of institutional factors in Asian companies IR, the findings show, political and economic systems play significant roles in differentiating the extent of IR content element while cultural and economic systems play a significant role in differentiating the use of IR guiding principles. The findings from this study are considered as pertinent as they provide evidence not only on the existence of IR elements and principles in Asian companies’ corporate reports but also the role of institutional factors to influence companies’ decision on reporting. These could be used by respective Asian regulators to formulate future plans on their respective financial reporting regulation.