From ivory tower to a storyteller of value creation: integrated reporting at Japanese and South African universities

Abstract

PurposeThe paper examines integrated reporting (IR) practices of two Japanese universities and three South African universities by evaluating and comparing their 2019 integrated reports.Design/methodology/approachA multiple case study research method is used in this study.FindingsThe paper reveals that IR is in its infancy at the sample universities. Some universities have initiated disclosing information to their stakeholders on how they create value. However, the universities lack a comprehensive approach to integrating financial and non-financial information, thereby affecting the IR disclosure quality. The findings indicate that informal coercive pressure of South African universities is a primary driving factor that enables the universities to achieve a higher IR disclosure quality than their Japanese counterparts.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper argues that institutional theory is relevant for explaining the differences in IR practices of the universities in the two different jurisdictional settings.Practical implicationsThe research will be of interest to university administrators, policymakers, regulators and other stakeholder groups of universities. The assessment of integrated reports serves as a first step to help the universities improve IR practices as well as to facilitate the diffusion of IR in higher education institutions (HEIs) globally. There is also a need for universities to pay more attention to the storytelling of their value creation in future IR disclosures.Originality/valueIt is the first to assess the IR quality of the Japanese sample universities as well as the first to conduct a comparative analysis for IR practices of universities in two different jurisdictional settings that have adopted IR. The findings of this study add to the current scholarly debate on universities' ability to tell their stories on their value creation to stakeholders via integrated reports.