This study deals with understanding the role of International Integrated Reporting Committee by referring to the IIRC websites as well as relevant accounting literature. In the next segment, explanation had been done to understand the potential roles of integrated reporting with regard to stakeholder engagement, comparability of reporting, quality of reporting, usefulness of reporting and users of reporting. The current segment compares the findings of the CPA report with the following guiding principles and these are stakeholder relationships, materiality, conciseness, reliability and completeness, consistency and comparability. In the next segment, comparison had been done between the objectives of International Framework and general purpose financial reporting as mentioned in the IASB or AASB conceptual framework. In the last segment, comparison had been done between four companies (HULAMIN LTD, CEMEX, MTN Group and DSM) and aligned with the IR guiding principles (stakeholder relationships, materiality reliability and completeness, consistency and comparability).
The International Integrated Reporting Council is one of the global coalitions of regulators, standard setters as well as regulators and accounting profession (Integratedreporting.org. 2018). The role of the International Integrated Reporting Committee is to create a globally accepted framework to deal with a process that lead to enhance the level of communications by any business on matters relating to value creation for specified time frame. This Committee together decides to bring development by conducting internationally accepted integrated reporting framework. By creating this framework, it will help business organization to get access to concise communications on how they can create value for given period of time. IIRC are responsible in promoting communication on matters relating to value creation as the next step is the evolution of corporate reporting.
Part A: Providing information that is relevant to stakeholders
Stakeholders are interested to get information relevant to their work. For instance, environmental stakeholders show interest in getting information about environmental issues of significance. These stakeholders have extensive but varied information needs that are predominantly cannot be addressed by any single or static or annual integrated report. By referring to the research findings of the CPA report and relevant accounting literature, it is found that most of the stakeholders use reports as background information for conducting research for a given company.
Part B: Stakeholder engagement
The primary source of information that the stakeholder receives is through direct engagement with the business companies. It is noted that stakeholder engagement is quite interesting as stakeholders need more information about the information on how they respond to prioritizing issues.
Part C: Comparability of reporting
Integrated reports fail to meet the informational needs of both stakeholders such as civic as well as environmental. Addition to that, stakeholders deals with problems on matters relating to comparability as well as quality at the same time.
Part D: Quality of reporting
It was found out by the financial stakeholders that the quality of integrated reporting actually shows variation through significant means. These stakeholders are of the opinion that the integrated reporting does not report lots of case studies and fails to set targets and do not have narrations on how the issues are significant to the business. On the other hand, environmental stakeholders pointed out issues on matters relating to reports that fail to include right indicators like amount of lending to fossil fuel projects as well as providing headline information about several smaller issues.
Part E: Usefulness of reporting
The integrated reporting is useful at the time of conducting decision-making activities. It is the stakeholders who had mixed views upon the usefulness of integrated reporting. The objectives of integrated reporting were to understand the perspectives of the stakeholders on matters relating to usefulness of integrated reporting at the time of undertaking decision-making activities (Tweedie, Nielsen and Martinov-Bennie, 2017).
Part F: Users of reporting
Stakeholders are the users of integrated reporting that represents the producers of integrated reports as compared to the usefulness of integrated reporting with the views of users of reports.
Part A: Stakeholder relationships
From the findings of CPA report, information can be gathered about stakeholder relationships under the performance content elements that states that one of the key components explain about state of stakeholder relationships (Cpaaustralia.com.au. 2018). On the other hand, integrated reporting includes improved corporate reputation as well as stakeholder relationships.
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Guiding principles |
Findings from CPA report |
Integrated reporting |
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Stakeholder relationships |
Stating stakeholder relationships |
Performance Business |
Part B: Materiality
From the findings of CPA report, it is found that environmental stakeholders wanted business to disclose certain information on matters relating to environmental as well as social impacts and information especially carbon gas emissions disclosure and climatic change. The stakeholders wanted to disclose the materiality concepts as well as their impacts. For instance, there are many companies who have access to information to their own operations. In addition, it is not that important unless the company has actual power generator or big energy user.
From the integrated reporting, it is noted that concept of materiality determines as well as applies from the perspectives of value creation. By using the framework, it will be clear to understand that an integrated report should be disclosing the information about matters that predominantly affect the ability of the business to create value for short, medium and long-term (Thomson 2015).
Part C: Conciseness
From the findings of CPA report, it is found that the companies largely praises about the conciseness but even present information. One of the reporters was of the opinion that because of level of detail, it was difficult to find potential information. In addition to that, other reporter felt that recognizing the challenge of keeping the report in concise form is challenging task that include all right information used for treating complex business.
From the integrated reporting, it is noted that most of the reporters finds it difficult to render concise information and even they try to provide sufficient context to the readers so that they understand the value creation process of an organization as well as level of performance at the same time.
Part D: Reliability and completeness
From the findings of CPA report, it is noted that more than 10 stakeholders questioned about the reliability of integrated reports. However, at the same time argues that the integrated information provides assurance as well as verification of the reports as it helps in providing some level of confidence to few stakeholders. As far as financial stakeholders is concerned, they find reliability in varied form as they deals with developing a reliability score for feeding into its assessment process. Furthermore, other financial stakeholders are of the opinion that the data provided should be reliable in nature. The information provided to the stakeholders should be complete and hiding of any information will lead to distortion of important information (Stubbs and Higgins 2014).
From the integrated reporting, reliability and completeness means balancing good as well as bad news together (Simnett and Huggins 2015). From the findings, it was noted that principles of reliability as well as completeness were quite encouraging as more than 68% of the reports shows used neutral factual language as well as manages to avoid looking like marketing or promotional tools. Furthermore, it is all about bringing improvement in the materiality determination process as it will help in bringing improvements in conciseness as well as reliability and completeness of information. Therefore, disclosing the materiality determination process will help in enhancing the credibility of the reports in the most appropriate way.
Part E: Consistency and comparability
From the findings of CPA report, it is found that major arguments were raised by the stakeholders on matters relating to usefulness of integrated reports that is helpful in comparing the reports. In addition to that, comparability is done between two or more companies within a sector and this is equally important for the environmental stakeholders.
From the integrated reporting, consistency and comparability means allowing comparisons to be made for given period of time with other business enterprise. Furthermore, integrated reporters shows interest in presenting the reports with internal consistency as well as measures for given period of time as compared to other companies.
Part A.
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Definition and objective of the International Framework |
Definition and objective of General purpose financial reporting as contained in the IASB or AASB conceptual framework |
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Definition- It is an integrated report that help in providing concise information about the strategy, performance, governance and prospects in the context of its external environment as it leads to creation of values for given period of time (Sierra?García, Zorio?Grima and García?Benau 2015) |
Definition- The conceptual framework for financial reporting help in describing the objectives as well as concepts used for general purpose financial reporting. In addition, it is a practical tool that is used for helping International Accounting Standards Board for developing Standards that are consistent by nature |
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Objectives- To establish guiding principles as well as content elements as it help in governing the entire content of an integrated report and explaining the basic concepts that underpins it |
Objective- To help preparers for developing consistent accounting policies where no Standard is applicable to specific transaction or events or in that case no Standard permits selection of accounting policy To help others to understand as well as interpret the standards |
Part B.
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Identification of the users of an integrated report |
Identification of the users of general purpose financial reporting |
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An integrated report help all stakeholders who shows interest in any organization and understanding their ability for creating value for specified time frame and this takes include employees, suppliers, customers, local communities, policy makers, legislators as well as business partners and regulators (Lodhia and Stone 2017) |
Users of general purpose financial reporting are the long-term investors Most of the existing and potential investors as well as lenders and creditors does not get information and this is the reason why they rely upon getting financial information from general purpose financial reports (García-Sánchez and Noguera-Gámez, 2017) |
Part C .
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Integrated report concept of materiality |
IASB conceptual framework concept of materiality |
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An integrated report properly discloses information on matters relating to materiality that can affect the business ability for creating value for given period of time The determination of materiality process helps at the time of presenting and preparation of integrated report. It help in identifying important matters based on their ability that affect value creation as well as evaluating the significance of relevant matters in terms of their known or potential effect on value creation attributes. |
Information can be treated material f there is any omitting or misstating of figures that can influence decision-making process where the primary users can gain financial information on matters relating to specific reporting entity (Flower 2015). Addition to that, materiality is one of the entity-specific aspect of relevance that is based upon magnitude and relates from the context on financial reporting of individual entity Therefore, the Board of IASB cannot mention a uniform quantitative threshold for explaining the concepts of materiality or enhancing what could be material in specific scenario. |
Part D.
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Integrated concepts on reliability, completeness, consistency and comparability |
IASB conceptual framework concepts of reliability, completeness, consistency and comparability |
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Reliability and completeness- An integrated report should consist of all the material matters (both positive and negative) in a balanced way as well as without any material error Reliability- It is noted that reliability of information gets affected by its balance as well as freedom from material error. In other words, reliability gets enhanced by mechanisms like robust internal control as well as reporting systems and engagement of stakeholders (Dumay et al. 2016) Completeness- In order to get complete information, all the material information needs to be identified as matters within an industry are likely to be material to all the business to that industry. |
Reliability- According to IASB conceptual framework, information is reliable if it is free from material error as well as has the capability to depend on users so that the information can be faithfully represented. Reliability is one of the qualitative characteristics of useful financial information Completeness-It is one of the components of faithful representation and information provided to users should be complete and there should be no missing information noted. The features of reliable information should be complete by nature (Cheng et al. 2014) |
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Consistency and comparability- Integrated report should include information and needs to be presented for consistent time frame and in a way that enables the comparisons with other business and help in creating values for specific time. Consistency- It is important to understand the fact that reporting policies need to be followed consistently for one period till there is any change needed for bringing improvement in the quality of reported information (Busco 2016). Comparability- In an integrated report, information varies from one business to other as each organization aims at creating values in its own unique way. |
Consistency- Consistency means using same methods for the same items within reporting entity. Comparability- Comparability is one of the qualitative characteristics that help users to identify as well as understand the similarities and differences among them. In other words, comparability is a goal (Brown and Dillard 2014). |
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Integrated reports of four companies |
IR Guiding Principles |
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HULAMIN LTD At Hulamin Limited, the company subscribes to the principles on stakeholder management as expressed in the King III Code (Hulamin ltd. 2018). In addition to that, management had been developed to highlight a strategy as well as formulating policies for the management of relationships with each stakeholder grouping. The company strives to resolve any disputes with their stakeholders in an effective way. The company has a preference where they want to settle the disputes rather than litigate and make use of alternative dispute resolution mechanism as and when needed. CEMEX At CEMEX, they believe in maintaining strong relationships with the stakeholders and aim at informing them about any changes made in the financial statement (Cemex. 2018). MTN GROUP At MTN Group, the company informs their stakeholders about the operations as their money is invested within the company (MTN Group. 2018). DSM At DSM, the company aims at informing their stakeholders as it help in building cordial relationships with them. The relationships with the stakeholders should be strong as it helps at the time of undertaking decision-making activities regarding the company (DSM. 2018). |
Stakeholder relationships Integrated reporting includes improved corporate reputation as well as stakeholder relationships (Adams and Simnett 2011). |
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HULAMIN LTD At Hulamin Limited, materiality concept had been applied to bring forward both qualitative as well as quantitative disclosures (Hulamin ltd. 2018). In addition to that, there are several changes made to the content as well as bring together enhancement of information and creating certain comparative figures that may result in noting information for future analysis purpose. CEMEX At CEMEX, the company believes in providing information on all material matters where there are no missing or misstated figures present in the financial statement (Cemex. 2018). MTN GROUP At MTN Group, the company highlights all the material matters in the financial statement so that users of financial reporting gets overall information about the company’s financial position for given period of time frame (MTN Group. 2018). DSM At DSM, the company put emphasis upon informing their users about material matters and mentions the same in the financial statement (DSM. 2018). |
Materiality Concept of materiality determines as well as applies from the perspectives of value creation |
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HULAMIN LTD The company believes in adopting consistent approach that can balance in treatment in and across categories of stakeholders (Hulamin ltd. 2018). The company needs to separate sustainability reports of the group that need to be assessed with consistency in providing consistent information that should be well-known to the Committee Members. As far as comparability is concerned, the company involves in comparing the information by evaluating certain comparative figures and need to be restated at the same time. CEMEX At CEMEX, the company aims at rendering consistent information to the users and the information that can be compared with other business entities (Cemex. 2018). MTN GROUP Both consistency and comparability is qualitative term that should be understood by the users while viewing financial statements. It is for this reason why MTN Group put proper emphasis upon these two qualitative characteristics and delivers their users with consistent information so that they can compare it with other business entities (MTN Group. 2018). DSM At DSM, the main focus relies upon providing consistent information to the users and the information that can be compared with other business entities at the same time (DSM. 2018). |
Consistency and comparability consistency and comparability means allowing comparisons to be made for given period of time with other business enterprise |
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HULAMIN LTD The company aims at providing reliable information to their users and the information should be complete with no material misstated figures or missing information (Hulamin ltd. 2018). It is the responsibility of the directors to look at the systems of internal control. The controls had been designed in order to render reasonable but not absolute assurances as compared to reliability of the financial statements. The company engages in verifying as well as maintaining accountability for components such as asset accountability as well as preventing or detecting material misstated figures o any loss. CEMEX At CEMEX, the main focus of the company is to provide reliable and complete information to the users (Cemex. 2018). MTN GROUP At MTN Group, proper emphasis had been given to provide reliable and complete information to the users (MTN Group. 2018). DSM At DSM, the main focus of the company is to provide reliable and complete information to the users (DSM. 2018). |
Reliability and completeness Reliability and completeness means balancing good as well as bad news together. |
From the above question, it is understood that how far the IR guiding principles are important to understand the undertakings taken by any organization. The four guiding principles selected above for analysis purpose was stakeholder relationships, materiality, reliability and completeness, consistency and comparability. These four principles are explained in detail by referring to four companies such as HULAMIN LTD, CEMEX, MTN Group and DSM. Integrated reports of these four companies are taken in order to relate with the IR guiding principles (Brown and Dillard 2014).
The factors that had been noted by explaining the similarities and differences are gathering of information. Getting the required information is necessary and can be treated as one of the factors that pertain to integrated reporting framework. Without adequate or relevant information, it becomes difficult for the company to attract the stakeholders and maintain relationships with them. Every shareholder has the right to get informed about any changes that had been implemented in the organization. Hiding of any financial information and involving in material misstatement of figures may lead to distortion of information and negatively affect the image of the company. The other key factors are communication with the stakeholders and maintaining relationships at the same time.
Conclusion
At the end of the study, it is concluded that integrated reporting provides information to the users. Integrated reporting help in thinking within mainstream business practices and connect it with the industries and companies. By conducting comparison, it is now important to understand that each of the company should aim at providing complete information in their financial statement as it will help users at the time of undertaking decision-making activities. Communication with the stakeholders as well as maintaining relationship with the stakeholders is essential in the long-term process.
References
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