Corporate Reporting Ecosystem: Elements, Regulations and Forecasts

Abstract

Businesses present financial and non-financial information about their past and future activities to their stakeholders through various corporate reports. These are expressed as the most important link and communication tool between the business and its stakeholders. In the past, stakeholders mostly requested financial information about business activities, and businesses created corporate reports based on these requests. However, over time, various changes and transformations have been experienced in the content and structure of corporate reports due to different information demands of stakeholders, the increasing importance of non-financial information and similar reasons. In recent years, as a result of this change, international institutions and organizations have carried out various studies for the creation of corporate reports. In addition, these institutions have made various regulations (guidance, standard) available to businesses. Regulations created mainly within the framework of environmental, social, governance, sustainability, integrated thinking and the institutions that reveal them have become intertwined and complex in terms of all parties interested in corporate reporting, especially businesses and their stakeholders. In this study, to obtain a clear and simple view of the complex structure in question, institutions that work on corporate reports on an international scale, regulations and other elements are discussed in a classified way. Then, all the elements that make up the corporate reporting ecosystem are presented in a clear, understandable and connected manner. Finally, the definition of the corporate reporting ecosystem is made and the predictions of the ecosystem are mentioned.