Does Integrated Reporting Matter to the Capital Market?
Published online on March 02, 2017
Abstract
Integrated reporting () is an emerging international corporate reporting initiative to address limitations to extant corporate reporting approaches, which are commonly criticized for being both voluminous and disjointed. While is gaining in popularity, current momentum has been limited due to a lack of clear evidence of its benefits. Utilizing the most suitable setting currently available, being discretionary disclosures made by listed companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, this study provides evidence that analyst forecast error reduces as a company's level of alignment with the framework increases. Further, the improved alignment is associated with a subsequent reduction in the cost of equity capital for certain reporting companies. The results are obtained after controlling for factors relating to financial transparency and the issuance of standalone non‐financial reports, which suggests that is providing incrementally useful information to the capital market over and above existing reporting mechanisms.