Gaining momentum: Towards integrated reporting practices in Gulf Cooperation Council countries

Abstract

The study focuses on all nonfinancial companies representing four Gulf countries namely: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE and Qatar. It provides a comparative analysis of the extent of Integrated Reporting practices amongst 217 listed companies in 2013 and 2014. Design/methodology/approach: The sample comprises all nonfinancial companies listed on the respective stock markets. An integrated reporting index comprising 43 items was developed based on a review of the extant literature and the IIRC framework. A descriptive analysis follows which explores the extent of integrated reporting amongst the sample companies.Findings: The results indicate that the Integrated Reporting is still in an embryonic stage with companies listed on the UAE and Saudi Arabia stock exchanges taking the lead. The results show great variation amongst the surveyed companies which could reflect the voluntary nature of IR practices and the absence of a universallyrecognised framework that guides such practices, resulting in companies having discretion in terms of the nature and extent of their IR practices.Practical Implications: This paper provides evidence from the Gulf region with respect to the extent of integrated reporting practiced there, as the majority of prior studies focus on countries with developed capital markets. The results presented in this paper should therefore be of interest to regulators and standard-setters charged with developing accounting standards related to integrated reporting.Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge this is the first study to investigate IR practices in the Middle East and North Africa region, so it could be regarded as an important step in understanding how this area of research is moving forward in developing countries context and should provide a springboard for future research in this area.

Visual disclosure through integrated reporting

“…Moreover, the study conducted by Liu et al (2019) on a sample of three publicly listed Australian IR adopters gave evidence that the extent to which such firms comply with the <IR> framework and describe their value creations stories is barely uniform. Ahmed et al (2020) detected the same variation in IR practices in relation to a sample of non-financial companies operating in four Gulf countries. Although they observed a slight increase in the extent of disclosure between 2013 and 2014, Ahmed et al (2020) However, IR's cohesive and multi-dimensional nature remains unexpressed under these studies, which focused on examining adherence to the <IR> framework.…”

“…Ahmed et al (2020) detected the same variation in IR practices in relation to a sample of non-financial companies operating in four Gulf countries. Although they observed a slight increase in the extent of disclosure between 2013 and 2014, Ahmed et al (2020) However, IR's cohesive and multi-dimensional nature remains unexpressed under these studies, which focused on examining adherence to the <IR> framework. The new disclosure philosophy introduced by IR deserves attention from different perspectives.…”

“…Several studies have examined the level of disclosure provided by companies in compliance with the <IR> framework requirements both at an international (Rivera-Arrubla et al, 2017;Ahmed et al, 2020) and individual country level (Setia et al, 2015;Haji and Anifowose, 2017;Albertini, 2019;Kilic and Kuzey, 2018;Liu et al, 2019). Both Setia et al (2015) and Haji and Anifowose (2017) found that introducing the IR in South Africa has fostered an increase in the extent of the disclosure provided by listed companies with a particular reference to the intellectual, human and social and relational capital.…”

Integrated reporting disclosure in Malaysia: regulations and practice

“…Busco et al , 2019; Frias‐Aceituno et al , 2013; García‐Sánchez et al , 2019; Garcia-Sanchez et al , 2020; Vitolla et al , 2019b; Raimo et al , 2020b; Chouaibi and Hichri, 2020), with less attention paid to emerging and developing markets (e.g. Ghani et al , 2018; Ahmed Haji and Anifowose, 2016; Suttipun and Bomlai, 2019; Ahmed et al , 2021; Cooray et al , 2020; Cooray et al , 2021; Al Amosh and Mansor, 2020; Salwa et al , 2020; Albetairi et al , 2018). Therefore, the current study fills this gap in the literature by assessing the current IR regulation status and the trends in IR disclosure in the annual reports of companies listed on the Bursa Malaysia.…”

“…Our study contributes to the existing IR literature in the following ways. First, this paper contributes to the enrichment of the literature by providing insights into IR practice from the perspective of the Southeast Asian region (specifically Malaysia) by conducting a comprehensive analysis of all companies listed on the Bursa Malaysia that prepare IR, in contrast to previous studies (Ahmed Haji and Anifowose, 2016; Ahmed et al , 2021; Cooray et al , 2021; Al Amosh and Mansor, 2020; Salwa et al , 2020). Second, the current study develops a comprehensive IR disclosure checklist based on IIRF (comprising the content elements, fundamental concept and guiding principles), which can be used to evaluate the current status and the trends of IRDL and IRDQ in different markets.…”