How to Challenge University Students to Work on Integrated Reporting and Integrated Reporting Assurance

Abstract

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, society has become more sensitive to sustainability and to the consequences of companies’ activities. Furthermore, the demands for change in corporate reporting have led to the emergence of integrated reporting (IR) and an increase in the disclosure of nonfinancial information assurance to ensure the compliance of integrated information. Universities need to embrace this challenge and be part of this change. This research’s goal is to enhance the diffusion of IR and integrated reporting assurance (IRA) in the curricula of universities by presenting a tool for professors and universities to help introduce the subjects in higher education institutions. The methodological approach develops a theoretical analysis of published IR and IRA articles related to education, to create a presentation of the challenge learning method (CLM) for professors and high education institutions to develop the subject of IRA to challenge students. Considering teaching experience as a value-added component to research the proposed method comes from the teaching experience of the authors. The result consists of a method that can increase accounting academics knowledge of IR and IRA and motivate students to study these emerging accounting practices. This study contributes to the extant literature on IR, IRA and Education that is scarce, the use of appropriate teaching methods to IR and IRA, and the dissemination of IR and IRA in education by providing a better connection between the universities and the best practices of corporate reporting and auditing. This study leads to an increase in the connection among higher education institutions, professors, students, practitioners, auditors, regulators, standard setters, and society in general.

Non-financial information assurance: a review of the literature and directions for future research

“…In other work, Maroun (2019a), (2019b) stated that the use of assurance to show accountability often takes materiality into account and offered a potential justification for the wide range of assurance engagements’ subjects. Rodrigues and Morais (2021) stated that materiality is strongly correlated with the level of assurance. Furthermore, Briem and Wald (2018) concluded that many integrated reports still suffer from the quality of materiality which can compromise the assurance process.…”

The Students’ Intrinsic Motivation for Learning Non-Financial Information Matters from Their Self-Identification as Global Citizens

“…As the regulation for corporate reporting is changing for more transparent and integrated sustainable reporting [29,34], also accounting education has increasingly reformed because of the growing globalization that requires skilled professionals able to assess the complex and controversial issues related to the topic [38] to achieve the UN's Agenda for SDG in 2030 [39,40]. From the organization's perspective, some international companies such as Ernst & Young, Cisco, Coca-Cola, or Cotton On are making popular discourses, funding campaigns, and publishing materials focused on the promotion of responsible global citizenship [12].…”

Quality of integrated reports: evidence from Brazilian public universities

“…Inquiries about the usefulness of existing traditional accounting and reporting models in providing information for the decision-making process (de Villiers, 2017) and society’s demand for sustainability information provided support for the emergence of Integrated Reporting (IR) (Rodrigues and Morais, 2021). IR is the most recent advance in reporting practices, considered a new paradigm of corporate reporting, has been gaining prominence in both private companies and public sectors worldwide (Adams and Simnett, 2011; IIRC, 2013; Van Zijl et al , 2017).…”