In 2010, the newly formed International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) proposed that the solution to this problem would be for companies to provide a clear link between the reported non-financial information and the financial information in a manner allowing an assessment of the ongoing future performance of the company. The mechanism the IIRC proposed to achieve this was for companies to produce a separate report (i.e., an integrated report) that integrates the companies’ financial and non-financial information. Specifically, the IIRC recommended a process of whereby an organizations’ value creation over time would be reported in a concise report, called an integrated report, which would communicate an organization’s strategy, governance, performance and prospects, in the context of its external environment, to show value creation over the short, medium, and long term (IIRC, 2013a,b).
This paper has three specific aims, which are addressed in each of the three ensuing sections. The first aim is to provide an introduction