Quantitative impacts of mandatory integrated reporting

This paper examines the impact of the 2011 mandatory introduction of integrated reporting (IR) on the financial performance, risk and institutional shareholding of listed companies in South Africa to assess whether there is a benefit to IR and which may encourage greater adoption of it globally. It contrasts the results with two other African stock exchanges (Nigeria and Egypt with no mandatory IR) and examines whether IR quality also has an impact on these and on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) disclosure scores. A series of multivariate ordinary least squares regressions were estimated on a range of financial, risk, institutional and ESG data from firms on the three African stock exchanges, between 2006-2015. Financial performance and risk in South African firms appear to have decreased since the start of mandatory reporting, but institutional shareholding has increased. The production of higher quality reports is associated with decreased financial performance and risk, higher institutional shareholding and increased ESG scores. This study is first to test the quantitative effects of IR and IR quality on a broad range of financial performance and risk measures and the level of institutional shareholding. It also adds to the literature by assessing how the quality of IR can impact the ESG scoring of the business. Hence this study is of interest to firms looking to adopt IR for its benefits and to regulatory bodies considering the mandatory adoption of IR in support of achievement of national social and environmental goals.