Integrated Reporting in the Public Sector: How Is the Research Developing?

The integrated reporting has been first introduced in the private sector as a voluntary tool. It has been then adopted by several organizations worldwide and disciplined by multiple frameworks, among which the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) Framework. According to the IIRC, “Integrated reporting is an evolution of corporate reporting, with a focus on conciseness, strategic relevance and future orientation” (https://integratedreporting.org/). It should be considered a concise tool suitable for integrating multiple pieces of information and communicating them to a wide set of stakeholders, supporting the creation of value in the short, medium and long term. The main purpose of an integrated report is to explain how different resources and capitals have been used to create value. The IIRC has published the < IR> Framework in 2013 and its revision in January 2021. The framework indicates guiding principles and content elements for the elaboration of the integrated report. The framework itself has been written for the private sector, but it can be adapted and applied by public and not-for-profit organizations. Nevertheless, despite the relevance of the topic, it is still under-developed and the empirical evidence on experiences with integrated reporting in public sector organizations is limited. In this context, the current research aims at reviewing the body of knowledge on the integration and reporting of financial and non-financial information in the public sector in order to achieve a deeper understanding of how this topic has been addressed up to now. Several reviews of the literature have been carried out in order to analyse the debate on the integrated reporting from a broad perspective (e.g., Dumay et al., 2016; Velte & Stawinoga, 2017; Vitolla et al., 2019), but it is lacking a focus on the public sector. This chapter is then specifically dedicated to review and analyse previous studies on public sector integrated reporting. Given the significance of the topic for the public sector and at the same time its limited development, the current research is particularly interested in understanding on which theoretical roots the research on integrated reporting is built. The underlying rationale is that, by developing an appropriate conceptual analysis and achieving a proper understanding of the integrated reporting, it is possible to effectively contribute to its improvement and development.