The cultural system and integrated reporting

The complexity of the business world has led to growing demands being made of companies regarding the information provided on their financial performance, management, corporate governance and sustainability record. In response, some leading companies have begun to publish integrated reporting, in the form of a document providing a coherent summary of this information, thus facilitating decision-taking by different stakeholders.The aim of this study is to examine the impact of the Hofstede national cultural system, which is representative of the values of local stakeholders, on integrated reporting, in comparison with the provision of various unrelated documents on corporate performance. The results obtained show that companies located in societies with stronger collectivist and feminist values are in the vanguard of information integration.

► We propose that holistic business transparency is determined by stakeholders’ cultural values.
► Integrated report provides a statement of how the organisation operates and how it creates and maintains value.
► Interest groups, in countries most oriented towards the common good, tend to improve the comparability and usefulness of the information.
► Firms with greater growth opportunities are less transparent in order to obtain benefits associated to problems of information asymmetry.