Integrated Reporting Accounting, Finance, SPSS Essay

Analyzing Integrated Reporting
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Introduction
For many years, other important elements or factors are quite crucial for the development and running of the business that has not been reported in financial statements. The financial reporting or corporate financial statement has only been concerned with the financial aspect of the business (Eccle&Krzus, 2010). However, other non-financial items or factors have not been captured in the traditional reporting. These non-financial elements include sustainability, strategy, intellectual capital, and human resources functions (Eccles&Krzus, 2010). As a result, scholars and financial professionals have proposed for a system that would capture every aspect of the business. These scholars and financial experts proposed for the Integrated Reporting (IR). The concept of Integrated Reporting was developed by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), an organization that was established in 2010, and it is currently chaired by Professor Mervyn King (Eccles& Saltzman, 2011). Therefore, Eccles and Saltzman (2011) define IR as a concept that aims at improving reporting mechanisms to offer a more holistic way of reporting business’ value creation, through consideration of non-financial resources like social and intellectual capitals, and also financial capital.
This essay, therefore, seeks to examine the objectives of IR as stated by IIRC, as well as exploring its benefits.
Objectives of IR
As earlier mentioned in the introductory part of the essay, the IR is a concept that aims at achieving communication of the value creation process in the organization to the stakeholders and possible investors. In a nutshell, the IIRC came up with the concept to enable organizations to provide precise information on how their different strategies, governance, and performance would lead to value creation both in the short, medium, and long term (Adams, 2015). There are some objectives that the IIRC is seeking to achieve with the Integrated Reporting concept.
The first objective IR is to fast-track the creation of a more cohesive and reliable approach to the corporate reporting that would bring together other standards of reporting, and also to communicate the holistic range of factors that materially impact on the organization’s ability create value within a given period (Adams, 2015). Secondly, the IR also seeks to improve the accountability and stewardship in the organization concerning a wide range of capitals such as (intellectual, capitals, human, manufactured, financial, and natural), and also to enhance understanding of they relate with one another (Cheng et al., 2014). Thirdly, the Integrated Reporting seeks to improve the quality of information that has been made available to the investors and shareholders to allow for a more efficient and productive allocation of scarce resources (Eccles& Saltzman, 2011). The final objective of IR is to promote integrated thinking, decision-making process, and also to promote those activities that are geared towards value creation in the short, medium, and long term.
Benefits of Integrated Reporting
South Africa is the first and the only country in the world that has ...