The first re­search report, Meeting Users’ Information Needs: The Use and Usefulness of Integrated Reporting, ex­plores how pro­viders of fin­an­cial capital per­ceive <IR> and its po­ten­tial for provid­ing de­cision-use­ful in­form­a­tion, through in­ter­views with senior capital market par­ti­cipants and other sig­ni­fic­ant reports users.  The report high­lights in­vestors’ in­form­a­tion needs and iden­ti­fies the key chal­lenges to wide­spread <IR> ad­op­tion.

The report in­dic­ates that “there is still work to do in raising aware­ness of <IR> prin­ciples among equity in­vestors and other pro­viders of finance so that in­teg­rated re­port­ing is ex­pec­ted and de­man­ded”.

A number of re­com­mend­a­tions are put forward which focus on in­creas­ing the current market pen­et­ra­tion of and fa­mili­ar­ity with <IR> among equity in­vestors and other pro­viders of finance/users and in­creas­ing the demand and per­ceived use­ful­ness of <IR>.  

The second report, Factors Affecting Preparers' and Auditors' Judgements about Materiality and Conciseness in Integrated Reporting ex­plores the issues of ma­ter­i­al­ity and con­cise­ness in In­teg­rated Re­port­ing from the per­spect­ives of cor­por­ate report pre­parers, company aud­it­ors and users of reports.  Evid­ence was gathered about current <IR> prac­tices and issues faced by prac­ti­tion­ers in de­term­in­ing ma­ter­i­al­ity and con­cise­ness in <IR>. 

For further details, refer to the press release on the ACCA website: