抄録
Integrated reporting (IR) emerged as a new form of corporate reporting that calls for consistent disclosure of financial and non-financial information. In 2013, the International ‹IR› Framework was released with the aim of stabilizing global finance and rebuilding a sustainable economy and society. Previous corporate reporting focused on short-term decision-making by investors and other stakeholders. However, this framework calls for “communication with companies on the creation value process based on the medium- to long-term perspective through integrated reports with stakeholders” (IIRC, 2013, p.8).
We focus on the “investment decision usefulness of integrated reporting” as an issue in IR research. Previous accounting studies concentrate on “value relevance” to examine the usefulness of investment decisions in financial reporting. However, research on the value relevance of integrated reports is still inadequate, and further research is needed for IR to function as a corporate report in line with financial reporting.
In this study, we consider the usefulness of IR for investment decisions from sociology perspective, with the assumption that it is difficult to obtain a new suggestion. We advance the theoretical research based on sociological methods by the German sociologist N. Luhmann. First, we capture accounting from Luhmann's theoretical perspective by re-describing accounting as an accounting system, and confirm the position of IR in the accounting system. Second, we consider the problem of “investment decision usefulness of integrated reporting” from the perspective of communication in the accounting system, and investigate the problems hidden within integrated reports.
