From ivory tower to a storyteller of value creation: integrated reporting at Japanese and South African universities

PurposeThe paper examines integrated reporting (IR) practices of two Japanese universities and three South African universities by evaluating and comparing their 2019 integrated reports.Design/methodology/approachA multiple case study research method is used in this study.FindingsThe paper reveals that IR is in its infancy at the sample universities. Some universities have initiated disclosing information to their stakeholders on how they create value. However, the universities lack a comprehensive approach to integrating financial and non-financial information, thereby affecting the IR disclosure quality. The findings indicate that informal coercive pressure of South African universities is a primary driving factor that enables the universities to achieve a higher IR disclosure quality than their Japanese counterparts.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper argues that institutional theory is relevant for explaining the differences in IR practices of the universities in the two different jurisdictional settings.Practical implicationsThe research will be of interest to university administrators, policymakers, regulators and other stakeholder groups of universities. The assessment of integrated reports serves as a first step to help the universities improve IR practices as well as to facilitate the diffusion of IR in higher education institutions (HEIs) globally. There is also a need for universities to pay more attention to the storytelling of their value creation in future IR disclosures.Originality/valueIt is the first to assess the IR quality of the Japanese sample universities as well as the first to conduct a comparative analysis for IR practices of universities in two different jurisdictional settings that have adopted IR. The findings of this study add to the current scholarly debate on universities' ability to tell their stories on their value creation to stakeholders via integrated reports.

Exacerbating the privacy paradox: Investigating cognitive load’s impact on disclosure

<p>Consumers have become the targets of a dual threat; more frequent requests for personal information and increased multitasking leading to distraction. This paper investigates the impact of cognitive load on the propensity to disclose personal information. A between-subjects experimental design was employed wherein participants completed a fictitious company questionnaire which asked for personal information whilst participants simultaneously remembered a 7-digit (Cognitive load condition) or 2-digit (Control condition) number. Upon completion of the questionnaire participants were asked to recall their number before answering several additional surveys and demographic questions. The results suggest that cognitive load influences the level of personal information disclosure in such a way that individuals tasked to remember a 7-digit number were more likely to disclose their personal information. Results also demonstrated the impact of information sensitivity, perceived risk, perceived worry, and need for cognition on three dependent variables: absolute disclosure, quality of disclosure, and response latency. The research adds greater nuance to the privacy paradox literature by proposing cognitive load as a key factor. Moreover, the results provide implications for marketing practitioners and policymakers regarding the acquisition of consumer’s personal information.</p>

Exacerbating the privacy paradox: Investigating cognitive load’s impact on disclosure

<p>Consumers have become the targets of a dual threat; more frequent requests for personal information and increased multitasking leading to distraction. This paper investigates the impact of cognitive load on the propensity to disclose personal information. A between-subjects experimental design was employed wherein participants completed a fictitious company questionnaire which asked for personal information whilst participants simultaneously remembered a 7-digit (Cognitive load condition) or 2-digit (Control condition) number. Upon completion of the questionnaire participants were asked to recall their number before answering several additional surveys and demographic questions. The results suggest that cognitive load influences the level of personal information disclosure in such a way that individuals tasked to remember a 7-digit number were more likely to disclose their personal information. Results also demonstrated the impact of information sensitivity, perceived risk, perceived worry, and need for cognition on three dependent variables: absolute disclosure, quality of disclosure, and response latency. The research adds greater nuance to the privacy paradox literature by proposing cognitive load as a key factor. Moreover, the results provide implications for marketing practitioners and policymakers regarding the acquisition of consumer’s personal information.</p>

The Effect of Ownership Structure on Disclosure Quality and Credit Ratings in Family Firms: The Moderating Role of Auditor Choice

Despite the substantial degree of heterogeneity within family firms, little is known about how their heterogeneity affects firm behavior and the implication for the shareholder–debtholder agency problem. Our study contributes to the literature by examining whether family firms with a higher level of control-ownership divergence would disclose less information and whether Big 4 auditors play a moderating role in mitigating the negative impact of control-ownership divergence on disclosure quality resulting in improved credit ratings. Using data from the emerging economy of Taiwan, we provide support for our three hypotheses. Our contributions will interest family firm owners, researchers, auditors, and policymakers.

Corporate Carbon Disclosure, Financing Structure and Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from Chinese Heavy Polluting Listed Corporates

Low-carbon economy has become the current global economic development trend, and Corporate carbon disclosure has attracted more and more attention from scholars and investors. This paper creatively explores the mechanism of corporate carbon disclosure quality on total factor productivity with financing structure as a mediating variable. The content analysis method is used to construct a carbon disclosure evaluation index system that is suitable for Chinese companies. Through the mediating effect model and Sobel test, the internal mechanism of carbon disclosure quality affecting total factor productivity is analyzed, with Chinese heavy polluting listed corporates from 2015 to 2018 as research samples. The empirical results show that, Firstly, the Quality of carbon disclosure has a positive effect on the improvement of total factor productivity. The effect of monetary carbon disclosure quality on the improvement of total factor productivity is higher than that of non-monetary carbon disclosure quality. Secondly, the financing structure has a mediating effect on the quality of carbon disclosure and total factor productivity, and the mediating effect of internal financing capabilities is better than those of external financing costs. Finally, external financing costs and internal financing capabilities have mediating effects in both heterogeneous carbon disclosure quality and total factor productivity. The mediating effect of internal financing capabilities is significantly higher than the mediating effect of external financing costs. Meanwhile, the effect of monetary carbon disclosure quality on total factor productivity indirectly through internal financing capabilities is higher than that of non-monetary carbon disclosure quality.

Non-financial disclosure and women on board: Is a mandatory approach on gender quotas effective to increase communication quality?

The present study investigates the effects of women on companies' boards on the quality of non-financial information, and the influence that a mandatory ap-proach has on this relationship. Previous studies have dealt with analysing the ef-fects of female presence on CSR or ESG information, but few pieces of research have taken into account other strands of non-financial information and have re-sorted to an index to measure its quality. Therefore, this study aims to contribute by extending the analysis to any type of non-financial information communicated by a company. Moreover, the present research contributes to the strand of litera-ture investigating the role of women on companies' boards. In fact, the results of the OLS regression analysis demonstrated that the presence of women with an ex-ecutive role positively influences the quality of disclosure in Italy, and this rela-tionship is not influenced by the advanced stage of application of the regulation on gender quotas. Moreover, disclosure quality is significantly higher for firms that disclose a non-financial statement. Nevertheless, the study suffers from some limi-tations with respect to the sample size and the analysis of the trend in reporting af-ter the introduction of Directive 2014/95/EU.

Voluntary and compulsory integrated reporting: Evidence on reporting quality

This study investigates the quality of Integrated Report (IR) in the voluntary and compulsory setting. This study's first objective is to measure IR disclosure quality and assess whether companies comply with the 2013 IR framework. The second objective is to examine whether there is any difference in reporting quality between the IR's compulsory regime and voluntary regime. A sample of 120 international companies listed on the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) websites throughout three years (2014-2016) is selected based on the availability of all data for the analysis. A Total Integrated Reporting Disclosure Quality (TIRDQ) index is self-constructed through quantitative content analysis. The finding shows that the quality of IR improved from the year 2014 to 2016. There is no significant difference in the reporting quality between mandatory and voluntary IR. The findings have implications for policy setters who have mandated or are considering mandating IR.