INTEGRATED REPORTING AND PREPARERS’ ACCOUNTABILITY: A MATTER OF CONTEXT

This research explores view(s) of corporate accountability that are implicit in integrated reporting (IR). The empirical setting features a global insurance company that pioneered IR in its 2012 annual financial report. Several in-depth interviews with the IR “preparers” from this firm depict how its IR has been built, as well as the contextual conditions underlying the decision to shift from financial reporting to IR. The results also reveal the predominance of investors’ (vs. stakeholders’) accountability, particularly in reference to addressees of corporate accountability in the IR. This paper offers new insights for literature dealing with corporate reporting and accountability in a novel, integrated reporting setting.