INTEGRATED THINKING, INTEGRATED REPORTING AND EFFECTS ON ESG AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE

Integrated Reporting <IR> has been paving the way to the integration of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and financial disclosure in a single report, thus enhancing and reinforcing integrated thinking across organisations. Since the publication of the IIRC’s <IR> Framework in December 2013, an increasing number of organisations has undertaken the journey toward integrated reporting. Still, the relationships between integrated thinking and integrated reporting and their effects on different types of performance have been scarcely explored. Through a content analysis of 84 reports worldwide, this research aims at linking the disclosure of integrated thinking with the ESG and financial performance, by constructing an Integrated Thinking Disclosure Index (ITDI) to capture the phenomenon. The findings suggest that the disclosure of integrated thinking only partially explains firm’s overall performance.