Abstract
In this chapter we carry out a fact-based study and answer two main yet unanswered research questions: first, whether and how the adoption of Integrated Reporting (IR) affects the sustainability communication with the market through the channel of conference calls; second, to what extent financial market participants ask for sustainability information when they are in direct dialogue with firms. To answer these questions we analyse the conference calls’ transcripts of firms that have adopted IR framework. Our findings reveal that the sustainability issues are not commonly addressed during the conference calls of IR adopters. This is particularly true while analysing the Q&A session of the call. The probable reason for this evidence comes from the market since the sustainability dimension of information merits a very low level of analysts’ interest. Overall, our empirical evidence supports the dynamic perspective of the International Integrated Reporting Council Framework.
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Notes
- 1.
See infra Sect. 7.2.1.
- 2.
This database is a joint project between the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) and the Black Sun. plc. It collects selected examples of emerging practices in Integrated Reporting aiming to provide a support to organizations that are developing, or planning to develop, an Integrated Report. The example reports have been selected from publicly available reports written in English and the dataset is continuously updated.
- 3.
Just as a remainder, an Integrated Report should contain the following content elements: organizational overview and external environment, business model, risk and opportunities, strategy and resource allocation, governance, performance, outlook and basis of presentation. Each content should be informed to the suggested guiding principles. In the IIRC framework, these latter ones are seven: strategic focus and future orientation, connectivity of information, stakeholder relationships, materiality, conciseness, reliability and completeness, consistency and reliability. Furthermore, the Integrated Report framework should be underpinned by two fundamental concepts: the organization value creation and capitals.
- 4.
- 5.
We include quarterly, half year and annual conference calls.
- 6.
Some companies were or went private while for some others no conference call transcripts were available.
- 7.
We applied the “stemmed words” approach that allows for checking words with the same stem.
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
The Word Tree is a visual and information-retrieval technique to explore text documents. A Word Tree is a graphical and interactive version of the traditional “keyword-in-context” method and depicts parallel sequences of words. In our case this tool can be useful to detect which words most often follow or precede the target word.
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Cavezzali, E., Hussain, N., Rigoni, U. (2016). The Integrated Reporting and the Conference Calls Content. In: Mio, C. (eds) Integrated Reporting. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55149-8_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55149-8_12
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