Beyond Financial Reporting. Integrated Reporting and its determinants: Evidence from the context of European state-owned enterprises

Integrated reporting (IR), which aims to overcome the limitations of both tradi- tional financial and stand-alone non-financial reports, has gained momentum as a single comprehensive tool merging financial and non-financial information. Initially conceived for private sector entities, IR is also establishing itself in the public sector context as a vehicle for transparency and accountability.

This research offers an empirical investigation of IR practices in the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) context. More specifically, the paper investigates the levels of disclosure provided through IR by a sample of 34 European SOEs and explores the effects of potential explanatory factors. The results indicate a fair level of IR disclo- sure and a trend of reporting information already requested under international ac- counting standards. The findings also highlight that industry (basic materials and financials) and size positively influence the level of IR disclosure in a particularly strong way, while governance features (board size and board gender diversity) and the provision of external assurance do not exert any impact.

Keywords: integrated reporting, state-owned enterprises, non-financial disclosure, accountability