The amount of literature on IR has grown over the last few years, but while particular attention has been paid to the variables that can play a role in IR adoption, IR quality and its determinants are still the subject of debate. The main determinants of IR quality outlined by the literature are firm size, industry, national context, firm performance, assurance, and to a lesser extent, corporate governance and company ownership structure. However, previous studies have usually reached conflicting results, thus not providing shared conclusions.This paper aims to understand the impact of the Board of Directors’ features on IR quality, evaluated in terms of the degree of compliance between IR content and the guidelines suggested in the IR framework presented by IIRC. The Board’s characteristics considered are size, composition and diversity with regard to board members’ gender, age and level of education.53 companies were taken into consideration from 2013 to 2016 for a total number of 212 integrated reports. Five research hypotheses were developed. Research findings highlight that IR quality is positively associated with the level of education of board members, and negatively with the presence of women. Moreover, among control variables, profitability (positive relation) and leverage (negative relation) are relevant determinants. Our research findings support the idea that the “quality” of the board members matters more than their “quantity” in increasing IR quality, and that diversity in the board is more relevant than diversity of the board.

The disclosure quality of Integrated Reporting (IR) and Sustainability Reporting (SR) is considered a relevant research topic because high‐quality disclosure is associated with a better representation of firms' performance and value creation process. However, only a few studies have addressed this topic and there is no clear knowledge as they have shown conflicting findings. In this paper, a systematic literature network analysis (SLNA) is applied to analyze the evolution of the research field on the topic of the disclosure quality of IR and SR. Findings show the actual state of the art on the quality of IR and SR disclosure and suggest new research trends. Moreover, this study applies a new methodology called SLNA to perform the analysis and it confirms its goodness as a method for dynamic analysis.

This study gives a depiction of what are the general directions taken by international institutions so to tackle the current health emergency and the most pressing environmental issues, such as climate change and COVID-19 (Schaltegger, 2020; Adebayo et al., 2021). The role of companies is crucial under disruptive events, such as a crisis or, more in line with the present time, a pandemic, and the pursue of the shareholder value cannot be the essence and the only objective in doing business anymore, since also ESG (i.e., environmental, social, and governance) dynamics have to be taken in due consideration. Moreover, an adequate and effective corporate governance should lead to higher disclosure quality, which subsequently should help protect the entire planet and ecosystems as well. In this context, the principal role of accounting and corporate reporting activities should be oriented towards making emerge what is and what is not done by companies in their business operations, and the disclosure of financial information is currently deemed inappropriate for pursuing a sustainable growth in the medium and long run (Schaltegger, J Account Org Change 16:613–619, 2020; Kirikkaleli & Adebayo, Sustain Dev 29:583–594, 2020; Tettamanzi, Venturini & Murgolo Wider corporate reporting: La possibile evoluzione della Relazione sulla Gestione Bilancio e Revisione, IPSOA - Wolters Kluwer, Philadelphia, 2021). Thus, the objective of this study is to investigate what international and European institutions have planned to do in order to align corporate objectives with environmental and societal needs in the coming years (Biondi et al., Meditari Account Res 28:889–914, 2020; Songini L et al. Integrated reporting quality and BoD characteristics: an empirical analysis. J Manag Govern, 2021). As of today, our analysis finds that IFRS Foundation (at global level) and EFRAG (at European one) have been taking steps toward the aforementioned issues so to propose disclosure standards more in line with sustainability and environmental needed improvements. In fact, we tried to give a depiction of what are the actual and future strategies that both these institutions are going to put in place: this snapshot will give scientists, engineers, lawyers, and business people an overview of what should be like the corporate world of the near future, from a corporate reporting/accounting perspective (so to better understand what will be expected from companies of all the industries worldwide).

The current dramatic context of COVID-19 has urged academics and practitioners to tackle the topic of the pandemic not only regarding its medical side but from the perspective of social sciences, accounting and accountability as well. In this sense, our paper moves from the pivotal work of Higgins and Walker (2012) and Merkl-Davies and Brennan (2017) and tries to trace the use and the extent of accounting communication by companies during the peculiar context of the pandemic. Considering the nature of the elements to be evaluated, we applied a manual content analysis, a more suitable technique than software to capture subjective and emotional elements. Among the main preliminary results of the paper, the volume and the importance of emotional content come to the surface, such as self-assessment and emotional tone. The paper confirms the important role of rhetorical analysis in understanding the quality and the meaning of the information provided by companies and contributes to the stream of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) studies on corporate reporting.

Integrated reporting (IR) represents the last frontier of corporate disclosure and aims to include material financial and nonfinancial information in a single document. One of the main objectives of IR, in the idea conceived by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), is to provide recipients with written information in a clear, understandable, and accessible way. In light of this goal, this study, using stakeholder theory, aims to examine the readability of integrated reports and the factors capable of affecting this level of readability. The analysis, conducted on a sample of 221 international companies that published an integrated report in 2020, shows a low level of readability of the integrated reports examined. Furthermore, it demonstrates a positive effect of firm size and financial leverage on the level of readability of the integrated reports, also highlighting a nonsignificant impact of firm profitability. Our results offer important contributions to theory and practice.