ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief overview of integrated reporting (IR). An integrated report should be a concise account of an organization’s future value creation story, including information on financial and non-financial capitals, and referencing the organization’s strategy and business model. Integrated reporting started in practice and was later formalized, first in the influential King Report on Corporate Governance, then by the Integrated Reporting Committee of South Africa (IRCSA), and the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC). Integrated reporting is now promoted by these institutions, the accounting profession, regulators and other bodies around the world who espouse the theoretical advantages of IR. There is empirical evidence for some of these claims, but IR’s critics lament its neoliberal foundations and its potentially negative consequences. These differing viewpoints are reflected in this book. We summarise the range of opinions in this lead chapter, while providing some frameworks for the different perspectives and causal links involved.
