The business model concept and disclosure: a preliminary analysis on integrated reports

This paper is aimed at exploring how business model definition suggested by the IRF finds an application within the firms that explicitly refer to the framework.In doing this, the study adopts a content analysis methodology. More in details, focusing on the most recent integrated reports available on the IIRC website, the study compares the level of disclosure presented in the BM section, to the contents suggested by the IIRC. To evaluate the ‘quality’ of disclosure the study considers a four–levels scale (information absence, qualitative information, quantitative information, both qualitative and quantitative information). Since the preliminary nature of this study, the evaluation model is applied just on the “inputs” item.First results show how within the BM disclosure not all the aspects suggested by the IIRC are considered. With particular focus on the “inputs” aspect the study highlights a prevalence of qualitative disclosure. In other words, it seems that firms prefer to disclose information through a qualitative description rather than using quantitative indicators.This paper contributes to the existing literature suggesting insights on how the business model disclosure works in practice.