Readability of integrated reports: an exploratory global study

Gerard William Stone and Sumit Lodhia

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 2019, vol. 32, issue 5, 1532-1557

Abstract: Purpose - A goal of integrated reporting (IR) under the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC)’s leadership is to provide clearly written, comprehensible and accessible information. In light of this objective, the purpose of this paper is to explore the readability and accessibility of integrated reports, an issue magnified by the IIRC’s continual commitment to clear and readable report language, and its intention for IR to become the corporate reporting norm. Design/methodology/approach - In a whole text software facilitated analysis, the study utilises readability measures and supplementary measures of reader accessibility in a multi-year analysis of a large sample of global integrated reports sourced from the IIRC examples database. Findings - The findings highlight the low readability of analysed integrated reports and indicate that readability is not improving. The supplementary measures suggest sub-optimal use of visual communication forms and overuse of structural presentation techniques which may contribute to reader accessibility of the analysed reports. Research limitations/implications - The study extends readability analysis to an emerging corporate reporting phenomenon and its findings contribute to the growing IR literature. The study applies supplementary measures of reader accessibility which advance the methods available to assess the communication efficacy of integrated and other corporate reports. Practical implications - The analysis of the readability and accessibility of integrated reports in the study indicates that the IIRC’s goal of clear, comprehensible and accessible reporting is not reflected by reporters’ practices. This has implications for the IIRC, reporting organisations, report readers and regulators. Originality/value - The study represents the first large-scale analysis of the readability and accessibility of global integrated reports.

Keywords: IIRC; Integrated reporting; Readability; Reader accessibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:aaajpp:aaaj-10-2015-2275

DOI: 10.1108/AAAJ-10-2015-2275

Access Statistics for this article

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal is currently edited by Prof James Guthrie and Prof Lee Parker

More articles in Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().