Integrated thinking and sustainability reporting assurance: International evidence

Recently, there has been increasing demand by stakeholders for firms to demonstrate how they create value within the context of their operating environment. Consequently, a new reporting approach, integrated reporting (IR), was conceptualised with its development linked to the firm's integrated thinking (IT). Yet very little is known about the effects of IT on firms' reporting decisions. Hence, we investigate whether IT influences firms' decision to publish an assured sustainability report. Using an international dataset, we find that IT is positively associated with sustainability reporting assurance. We also find that this association is moderated by the type of legal system such that for firms in code law countries, the IT effects are reduced. Nevertheless, the effects of IT remain strong, indicating that IT is important for reporting decisions regardless of the firm's contextual setting. These findings have implications for policymakers and organisations interested in promoting high-quality sustainability reporting.     

Enhancing Market Valuation of ESG Performance: Is Integrated Reporting Keeping its Promise?

This paper studies the effectiveness of a firm's strategy to report on its ESG activities with regard to the extent and direction in which the firm's ESG performance is valued by capital market investors. It is the first to disentangle the moderating effects of different types of ESG reporting on market valuation of ESG performance and to analyze whether following the current integrated reporting trend is worth the effort. Results indicate that ESG performance is valued more strongly and in the (desired) positive direction when firms publish an ESG report, irrespective of its type (stand‐alone or integrated). Furthermore, integrated reporting is associated with superior outcomes compared with a stand‐alone report for composite ESG and corporate governance performance. Our findings are important for corporate managers, as they help to understand market valuation of ESG performance in dependence on the reporting type and provide guidance for formulating and evaluating the reporting strategy. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The impact of national culture on integrated reporting quality. A stakeholder theory approach

Integrated reporting (IR) is a new corporate‐reporting system that aims to represent the firm's value creation in the short, medium, and long term. In contrast to other disclosure systems focusing on non‐financial dimensions, including social and environmental aspects, IR is characterized by information connectivity. In recent years, integrated reporting has received increasing interest, both academic and professional. However, report quality is still a critical aspect of IR. Although several studies investigate IR, few focus on quality and its determinants. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the impact of national culture, an external determinant, from a stakeholder theory perspective. The results show that IR quality is related to five dimensions of Hofstede—power distance, individualism, masculinity, and indulgence negatively and uncertainty avoidance positively. This study contributes to the relevant literature by analysing an additional factor that influences the quality of corporate reports, namely, national culture. This is the first study that investigates national culture as a determinant of integrated‐reporting quality.     

Environmental transparency and investors' risk perception: Cross-country evidence on multinational corporations' sustainability practices and cost of equity

We explore whether a greater amount of environmental disclosure can reduce a firm's ex ante cost of equity. This could occur because the quantity of environmental information changes investors' risk perception of the company, thereby influencing its ex ante cost of equity. Our study is a cross-country analysis of 1481 multinational corporations (MNCs) across 43 countries and territories from 2013 to 2019. Firstly, we measure investors' risk perception as a firm's ex ante cost of equity by employing five different valuation models, all based on equity analysts' forecasted data. We then investigate whether large quantities of environmental information disclosed by an MNC affect its ex ante cost of equity. We find evidence that investors price the amount of environmental disclosure. More environmental disclosure decreases a firm's ex ante cost of equity because it lessens investors' information asymmetry. However, this relationship is non-linear. Once the amount of environmental disclosure data exceeds a certain threshold level, a firm's ex ante cost of equity will rise again. Our empirical results also suggest that non-financial factors at the country level play a role in shaping how investors perceive a firm's riskiness. Locating the firm in a country with better environmental performance and a higher score of the human development index can reduce investors' risk perception and result in a lower ex ante cost of equity. A policy implication of our findings is that a global standardised and effective corporate sustainability reporting is needed to provide investors a more holistic view for evaluating the riskiness of their investments.     

The role of ownership structure in integrated reporting policies

Integrated reporting (IR) is used to demonstrate a firm's capacity to create value in the short, medium, and long term. It can better represent existing relationships between the company and its stakeholders, with a particular focus on investors. Attention to IR has grown considerably in recent years. However, studies on the determinants of IR quality are still limited. This study aims to bridge this literature gap by being the first study to analyse the role of ownership structure in IR context. To this end, it uses agency theory and is based on a sample of 152 international companies that have adopted IR. The results indicate a positive effect of institutional ownership and a negative effect of ownership concentration, managerial ownership and state ownership on the quality of integrated reports. These results are also consistent with the level of alignment of integrated reports with the <IR> framework. To our knowledge, this is the first study that analyses the role of ownership structure in the IR policies.     

The impact of voluntary corporate disclosures on the ex-ante cost of capital for Swiss firms

The relationship between disclosure quality and cost of equity capital is an important topic in today's economy. In general, economic theory and anecdotal evidence suggest a negative association. Empirical work on this link, however, is confronted with major methodological drawbacks – neither disclosure level nor cost of capital can be observed directly – and has documented somewhat confounding results so far. Adopting a finite horizon version of the residual income model, I provide evidence on the nature of the above relationship and try to quantify the effect of a firm's voluntary disclosure policy on its implied cost of capital. Switzerland seems especially suited for an analysis of this kind given that Swiss firms have considerable reporting discretion and the mandated level of disclosure is low. For a cross-sectional sample of seventy-three non-financial companies I show a negative and highly significant association between the two variables. The magnitude is such that the most forthcoming firms enjoy about a 1.8 to 2.4% cost advantage over the least forthcoming firms. The findings persist even after controlling for other potentially influential variables, e.g. risk characteristics and firm size. Furthermore, adjusting for self-selection bias – a major concern in disclosure studies – the marginal effect remains of the same direction and even increases in magnitude, although at lower levels of statistical significance. One reason for the strong relationship might be found in differing institutional factors between the US and Swiss capital markets.     

Do audit committee attributes influence integrated reporting quality? An agency theory viewpoint

The limits of financial disclosure in meeting the investors' needs have led to the request for reporting frameworks capable of incorporating information of different nature. Integrated reporting (IR), which is the latest novelty in organisational reporting practice, promises to bring together material financial and non-financial information. IR has received considerable academic attention in recent years. However, little attention has been paid to the role of the audit committee in IR processes, despite the influence that this body has on disclosure, thanks to its supervisory and monitoring functions. This study bridges this gap by analysing the effect of the audit committee attributes on integrated reporting quality (IRQ) from an agency theory perspective. The regression analysis, conducted on a sample of 125 international firms, demonstrated a positive effect of size, independence and meeting frequency of the audit committee on IRQ and a non-significant effect of financial expertise.     

Corporate debt,corporate taxes and leasing

This paper utilizes recent developments in capital lease modeling to develop a new specification of the relationship between the expected returns to debt, levered equity and unlevered equity for firms that lease a portion of their assets. Accounting explicitly for leases is shown to be important when the difference between equity and debt risk is large, when the risk of leased assets differs from the firm's other assets and when salvage value is a significant portion of the capitalized value of the firm's lease obligations. This new specification yields improved estimates of firms' unlevered cost of capital, thereby facilitating improved capital budgeting decisions in those that lease a significant portion of their assets.     

Voluntary Adopters of Integrated Reporting – Evidence on Forecast Accuracy and Firm Value

This study investigates how integrated reporting (IR) creates value for investors. It examines how providers of financial capital benefit from an improved firm information environment provided by IR. Specifically, this study investigates the effect of voluntary IR disclosure on analyst earnings forecast accuracy as well as on firm value. To do so, we use an international sample of 167 listed companies that voluntarily publish an integrated report. Our analysis shows no significant effect of a voluntary IR publication on analyst earnings forecast accuracy and no significant effect on firm value. We thus do not find evidence for the fulfillment of IR's promises regarding improved information environment and value creation of voluntary adopters. We conclude that such companies might already have a relatively high level of transparency leading to an absent additional effect of IR disclosure. Positive effects of IR appear to be more relevant in environments where IR is mandatory.     

The Risk-Relevance of Accounting Data: Evidence from the Spanish Stock Market

This paper analyses the relevance of accounting fundamentals to inform about equity risk as measured by the cost of equity capital. Assuming the latter is a summary measure of how investors make decisions regarding the allocation of resources, the strength of the association between the cost of capital and the accounting‐based measures of risk indicates how important these measures are for market participants when making economic decisions. To infer the cost of equity capital, we use the O'Hanlon and Steele's method, which is based on the residual income valuation model. Moreover, we use the insights from this model to provide a theoretical underpinning for the choice of the accounting variables related to risk. The sample refers to the non‐financial firms listed in the Madrid Stock Exchange along the period 1987–2002. Our results support our initial expectations regarding the association between the cost of equity capital and the accounting‐based risk variables, thereby supporting the usefulness of fundamental analysis to determine the risk inherent in share's future payoffs. In particular, we highlight the role of investing risk, which has been ignored in previous research. Our results are also robust to measures of risk other than the cost of capital such as the variability in total returns and the firm's systematic risk (β).     

The impact of organizational climate and strategic fit on firm performance

A firm's organizational climate—its degree of trust, morale, conflict, rewards equity, leader credibility, resistance to change, and scapegoating—helps determine its success. Likewise, organizational strategy—the firm's commitment to capital investment, innovation, quality, and the like—has also been found to be an important determinant of firm performance. However, prior work has most often explored the impact of climate and strategy separately, and not in tandem. In our study, we develop a measure of organizational climate comprised of tension, resistance to change, and conflict, and go on to show that at least for some pairings of a firm's climate and its strategy, there is a negative effect on return on assets (ROA). © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The revision frequency of earnings forecasts and firm characteristics

This study investigates how the revision frequency of earnings forecasts affects firm characteristics. Previous studies generally focus on the number of analysts following a firm to measure a firm's information environment. The frequency with which news is updated is often defined as an analyst's effort. Analysts provide more information to investors if they update news more frequently. This study examines whether the frequency of information updating for a particular firm affects the firm's performance. We apply three proxies for firm performance: stock liquidity, the cost of equity capital, and firm value. Our findings indicate that the analysts’ effort as measured by the frequency of news updating is effective in providing additional power beyond the number of analysts to represent the information environment of a firm. Therefore, this study suggests that combining both the number of analysts following a firm and the frequency of news updating can be a better proxy for assessing a firm's information environment.     

Does adoption of ISO 56002-2019 and green innovation reporting enhance the firm sustainable development goal performance? An emerging paradigm

Reporting is a means of communication for companies to their respective stakeholders. The literature on non-financial reporting has mostly focused on operational, Carbon Discloser Project (CDP), and environmental disclosure to firm performance. This reporting and disclosure approach adopted by companies in their sustainability practices appears to be a normative approach. However, there has been a growing demand by stakeholders to incorporate proactive approach in business activities. To meet that, green innovation practices (GIPs) has been integrated as a new element in environmental reporting, thereby reflecting the proactiveness of companies in their adoption of green innovation reporting (GIR). The objective of this study is to advocate for greater disclosure on sustainability reporting by incorporating the GIPs of companies and substantial, sustainable development goal contribution, along with the moderation of the newly upgraded ISO 56002-2019 innovation management system. Adoption of green innovation reporting and ISO 56002-2019 will enhance the level of transparency of business activities and create greater stakeholder confidence along with enhancing the firm's sustainable development of goal performance. Furthermore, an extensive literature review was undertaken to create a GIR framework (i.e., product, process, service and technology) for firms to integrate GIPs into sustainability reporting. The conceptual model proposed the adoption of green innovation reporting and ISO 56002-2019 innovation management system to firm sustainable development goal. This needs to be injected into the sustainable reporting of companies to reflect their innovativeness, actual sustainable business practices and sustainable development goal performance for the firm.     

Asset specificity,capital intensity and capital structure: An empirical test

Capital investment and capital financing decisions interact. To resolve current controversies in investment-leverage-growth relationships requires an integrated industrial organization/financial economics empirical model of profit margins, capital investment intensity, leverage and risk. Using cumulative future losses in discontinued operations to measure the asset specificity of the firm's investments, empiricai results support a complementary (positive) relationship between debt and investment, the debt financing of verifiable contemporaneous growth, equity financing of future growth and the debt financing of specific assets. This evidence rejects the transactions cost theory of capital structure in Fortune 500 firms.     

Exploring the firm and country determinants of the voluntary adoption of integrated reporting

Information used to manage the business and support the decision‐making of stakeholders is being subject to an evolution. In this context, traditional financial reporting is considered not sufficient anymore. This has translated into a sharp increase in the number of firms that have begun to adopt emerging reporting practices. This study aims to examine the influence that both firm‐ and country‐specific characteristics have on the voluntary uptaking of integrated reporting internationally. In order to do so, it analyses a sample of 71 international listed companies that have adopted this reporting form in 2016. The results show that firms are more likely to implement integrated reporting if they are located in countries with a higher level of corruption perception and a better risk rating and that are considered as relatively more collectivist and feminist and with a long‐term orientation. Legal system has resulted to be not significant. As for firms' characteristics, large size, profitability, market‐to‐book ratio, and the size of the board are found to be significant variables. Moreover, the results indicate that the adoption of integrated reporting is not influenced by a higher level of leverage, firm efficiency and board diversity and independence.     

Entrepreneurial human capital,equity concentration and firm performance: Evidence from companies listed on China's Growth Enterprise Market

In this work, a sample of firms listed on China's Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) is employed to investigate the impact of human capital and equity concentration on firm performance. It shows that entrepreneurs' education level, industry experience and technical professional background have a positive impact on firm performance. Moreover, the higher the equity concentration, the better a firm's performance. Entrepreneurs with rich industry experience and a technical professional background tend to collect and condense equity, thereby increasing equity concentration. These findings reveal the relationship between entrepreneurial human capital and ownership concentration and enrich research on firm performance.     

Corporate carbon risk,voluntary disclosure,and cost of capital: South African evidence

The study examines the interplay among corporate carbon risk, voluntary disclosure, and cost of capital within the context of South Africa, a “rising power” in the climate policy debate. We develop a system of simultaneous equations models and analyze data drawn from firms traded on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE), for the period 2010 to 2015, using the three‐stage least squares procedure. We find that voluntary carbon disclosure is associated with lower overall (and equity) cost of capital, after controlling for corporate carbon risk. We also find that firms with higher carbon risk tend to provide better quality carbon disclosure and signal the possibility of high carbon risk to avoid negative market reactions resulting from concealing carbon information. Although the capital market does not appear to incorporate individual firm's carbon risk exposure into the required cost of capital, we find that it generally requires higher returns for companies operating in carbon‐intensive sectors. These findings suggest that firms could exploit the virtues of voluntary carbon disclosure to reduce their overall (and equity) cost of capital. Our findings also imply that regulators and policymakers could point to the cost of capital reducing role of voluntary disclosure to lure firms into voluntarily providing superior quality carbon disclosures.     

Firm Productivity Moderated Link Between Human Capital and Compensation: The Significance of Task‐Specific Human Capital

The human capital of a firm as manifested by employee knowledge and experience represents a key resource of a firm's capabilities. Prior empirical studies have found that firms composed of high levels of human capital experience superior firm performance. Human capital theory proposes that an individual's general or firm‐specific human capital is positively related to compensation. However, empirical studies examining firm‐specific human capital's association with higher employee compensation have been inconclusive. The current study proposes that firm‐specific human capital be categorized as task‐specific and non‐task‐specific. Employees accumulate task‐specific human capital through duties conducted in their current position. Non‐task‐specific human capital represents experiences gained in prior positions to an employee's current job within the firm. Utilizing human capital data from 38,390 employees representing 76 firms in the IT sector, this study examines the association between forms of human capital and employee compensation at different levels of firm productivity. Results show that task‐specific human capital is associated with higher employee compensation. In addition, firm productivity moderates this association.     

Corporate carbon risk exposure,voluntary disclosure,and financial reporting quality

The study examines whether corporate carbon risk exposure is associated with financial reporting quality and whether voluntary carbon disclosure mediates the relationship. We analyze data drawn from firms traded on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), for the period 2011 to 2015. We document robust evidence that firms with higher carbon risk exposure tend to provide financial statements of poorer quality (i.e., direct effect) and this association is partially mediated through voluntary carbon disclosure (i.e., indirect effect). The overall negative association between corporate carbon risk exposure and the firm's financial reporting quality is partly explained by the quality of voluntary carbon disclosure.     

Board Effectiveness and the Voluntary Disclosure of Climate Change Information

This paper examines the relationship between board of directors' effectiveness and voluntary climate change disclosures. Since risk management and reporting fall under the board's responsibility, we relate board effectiveness to the firm's decision to voluntarily respond to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) annual questionnaire as well as the quality of disclosures about climate‐change‐related risks and strategies to mitigate them. Our results show a positive association between board effectiveness and the firm's decision to answer the CDP questionnaire as well as its carbon disclosure quality. The paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the determinants of voluntary climate change disclosures. Our findings highlight the importance of the board of directors' role in enhancing the transparency and relevance of voluntary disclosures of climate change business impacts. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment