Business model disclosure in the Strategic Report

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate business model (BM) disclosure. As the BM shows how a company creates and captures value, its communication in the Annual Report is considered a necessary background for a dynamic analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of the intellectual capital (IC) contribution to a company’s competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach – Focusing on a sample of listed UK companies operating in high-technology industries, this paper runs a content analysis of BM disclosure presented in the Strategic Report (SR). To develop the analysis, it refers to an ontological approach that encompasses the main research contributions to this topic. Findings – The analysis of SRs revealed that few companies use their BM disclosure to highlight the contribution of their IC to create and capture value. BM descriptions are not always clearly distinguishable from other strategic concepts and poorly illustrate the interactions among the BM components, which help understand how IC is entangled in a company’s value creation process. Practical implications – This paper answers the Financial Reporting Council’s call for comments about its Guidance on SR. More in general, it contributes to the issue of the regulation of narrative information in the Annual Report. Originality/value – This paper proposes a methodological framework for the analysis of BM disclosure quality. Thanks to this framework, it points out some critical issues of BM disclosure and offers some hints useful for its regulation.