The Journey Towards Integrated Reporting in Bangladesh

Abstract

The necessities of cohesive, integrated and decision-supportive information for apprehending the future prospect and capacity of the companies have led to the advent of integrated reporting (IR). This study examines whether the Bangladeshi companies are moving towards IR. The extent of IR practices of the listed companies in Bangladesh for the year 2014 to 2016 has been measured with a view to reaching a conclusion. In regard to this study, DSE30 companies have been considered as the sample companies while their integrated reports or, in absence, their annual reports have been scrutinized. Content analysis approach has been followed in this study to construct IR index considering the fifty items of the eight content elements of IR as prescribed by International Integrated Reporting Council in its International IR Framework. Our analysis exhibits that in 2016, 22% of the sample companies have adopted IR, which has been commenced in 2015 whereas no company has undertaken IR in the year 2014. Content-wise IR index depicts that the disclosures of items under each of the content elements have been increasing over the time. Item-wise analysis has demonstrated some items of IR (i.e. materiality determinations process, linkage between strategy and resource allocation plan), disclosures of which have been appeared in the annual reports after the adoption of IR. Company-wise IR ensures that IR index for each company has been either increasing or remaining the same over the period. In total, IR index for all the sample companies has increased to 0.6148 from 0.4511 over the three years. These indicate that companies in Bangladesh have started adopting IR through standalone integrated report or annual report in an integrated way in spite of having no mandatory requirement.